Caelum Contortum: Snarled Stories
by Japanese Teeth
Summary: A disturbance in the sky brings unlikely characters together as they try to unravel what is happening.  Starts as a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic/Negima: Magister Negi Magi crossover; will include other series later on.  Eventually.  :p
1. A Hole in the Sky

_Continuities are not unlike parallel lines in Euclidean Geometry; they are never supposed to intersect. Continuities, in the vast majority of cases, run next to each other without ever crisscrossing. And this is likely for the best, as continuities are also not unlike a ball of yarn or that mass of computer wires behind the desk: when they begin to intertwine, separating them is nigh-impossible unless one eventually resorts to picking a line, tugging, and hoping for the best. Needless to say, keeping things thus unsnarled is generally in everyone's best interest, both inside and outside of the continuity._

_ So naturally, what you are about to witness is something of a non-Euclidean electric knot of yarn comprised of continuities that should never, for any conceivable reason (save simple curiosity), have crossed paths. In that, at least, continuities also resemble a train wreck._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1: A Hole in the Sky<strong>

Twilight Sparkle couldn't be entirely sure whether her eyes were open or closed. Most likely they were halfway between. After all, she was halfway between being awake and asleep. She blinked a few times and was just barely able to make out the gleam of starlight on the end of her bed. Apparently the lamp had gone out at some point during the night. Normally it wouldn't have been a problem, but that night had been the first of the No-Moon Festivals that Princess Celestia had established so that Equestria would actually appreciate Princess Luna's duties. It was working. There was nothing that Twilight would have appreciated more than some moonlight.

"Ow!" There was a clatter as she bumbled into the stacks of books next to her bed. "Spike, can you light a candle or something? I can't see my hoof in front of my face!" She turned back to the window, which despite the pinpricks of light in the darkness was still quite dim. Either they were due for rain that night, or Rainbow Dash was slacking again and had let some stray clouds drift in. "Spike! Wake up!"

"Mmrnblbl...rar...gem...mbmlbgrf..."

Of course Spike would still be asleep. Just when she needed him so she could...what was it she had to do?

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Oh right. Somepony was at the door. She could hear a muffled voice; loud enough that it definitely wasn't Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash would have just buzzed the window, and if it was Pinkie Pie, it would be obvious. So it was either Rarity or Applejack.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

More knocks. And then more muffled shouting.

Twilight squinted at the door, as if it was somehow going to help her hear more clearly. Maybe it did. She could just barely make out a "tar-nation" among all the shouting. So it was Applejack, then.

"I'll be right down!" Twilight let out a disgruntled whinny as she tried to shake the fatigue out of her head. Magic was already beginning to surge through her body to the tip of her horn, where she could make it manifest as a ball of light. Why she hadn't just done that in the first place, she wasn't sure. She blamed it on the fact that at best she was maybe three-fifths awake, and began to trot down the stairs. Applejack's shouting was getting even louder.

"Twilight! We're havin' an emergency over at Sweet Apple Acres! You gotta get yerself over there now!"

The unicorn jumped the last few steps as she heard the word emergency. There was nothing Applejack liked less than asking for help. And if she was over here at whatever-o-clock in the morning, something had to be seriously wrong. With a flick of her horn, the door popped open.

"What is i-Ooof!" The breath was knocked out of her as Applejack tumbled onto her through the now-open doorway.

"We're havin' a crisis!" Applejack scrambled to her feet, nervously pawing at the floor with her hooves. "Hurry up! You're the only one who'd know what in tarnation is goin' on over there!"

"Calm down, Applejack." Twilight tottered back onto her hooves. "Tell me what's going on?" She squinted. Even in the dim glow of the light she had summoned, it was clear that Applejack's normal orange-y complexion had given way to something more yellow. "Are you all right? You don't look so good."

"Ah'm fine! The sky's the problem!"

"The sky? What about it?" Twilight fought the urge to yawn. She was eager to hear what was going on, but she knew that she hardly looked interested due to her not-fully-awake state. Yawning was not going to help.

"There's nothing there! That's the problem!"

So that was it.

"There isn't supposed to be anything there." Twilight rubbed at her tired head with one of her hooves. Explaining this again was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment. "Tonight was the No-Moon Festival, remember? Princess Luna didn't bring the moon up tonight because she wanted us to realize how important it is."

"Ah know that!" Applejack stomped. "The moon ain't the problem."

"Then what is!-?"

"It's them stars!"

"What about them!-?" Twilight snapped. What she would give for one pony in this town whom could get straight to the point...

"The stars ain't there either!"

"What!-?" Any trace of fatigue in Twilight's body or mind was immediately shoved out by an enormous surge of adrenaline. "That doesn't sound right. Princess Celestia told me that only the moon was going to be affected."

"Well, I dunno about that, but I do know that the stars are missin'. Now get out here and come take a look!" Applejack spun around and galloped down the main road towards her farm.

Twilight flicked her head in the direction of Spike's bed, flipping the baby dragon out of his peaceful slumber and onto the floor.

"Ow!" Spike tumbled into his nightstand as he fought to extract himself from his blanket. "What are you doing?" He poked his head out from the wrap of covers. "Come on, Twilight, did you really have to do that?"

"Sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry." A quartet of books was lowering itself from the shelves, magically guided towards Twilight's saddlebags. "Applejack says that the stars over Sweet Apple Acres are starting to go out, so I'm going to investigate. I need you to come along in case I need to contact the princess."

"Stars going out?" Spike clamored his way onto Twilight's back. "Any idea why?"

"No, and if I had any idea, I wouldn't be in such a rush." She trotted out the door. "The princess said that the stars were going to be the same, even when the moon wasn't out. If the stars are being affected as well, it might mean that Princess Luna has reverted back into Nightmare Moon."

"Again?" Spike yawned. "Guess you'll just have to bust out the Elements of Harmony again, right? That solved all your problems last time."

"We'll find that out once we get there. I'm hoping that Rainbow Dash just missed a stray cloud or something. If the stars really are disappearing, all of Equestria could be in big trouble. Hold on tight."

Spike barely had time to readjust his grip before Twilight had broken into a full gallop.

* * *

><p>"An abnormality in the sky, you say?" Konoemon, the headmaster of Mahora Academy, stroked his beard contemplatively. It was entirely possible that he knew exactly what was going on, and gears inside of that eggplant-shaped head of his were already spinning, working out a solution. It was equally possible that he had absolutely no idea what to make of this report and was merely stroking his beard in an effort to maintain his dignity despite a total lack of knowledge concerning what was going on. "I have no idea what to make of this. Can you describe this abnormality in more detail, Naba-san?"<p>

"Of course, Headmaster." Chizuru bowed. "During the activities of the Astronomy Club last night, we were examining the night sky and realized that a certain section of the sky was wrong."

"Wrong?" The headmaster lifted a massive eyebrow. "How can the sky be wrong?"

"Well, at this time of years, certain stars should be in certain places. In this quadrant none of the stars are in the right places. It should look like this..." She held up a large poster of the night sky. "But it looked like this..." She held up another picture. "It's as if a part of the sky was removed and replaced with something else. The rest of the information is in here." There was a loud thump as she dropped a thick folder onto the desk.

"I see..." The headmaster nodded gravely. He wasn't entirely sure that the two pictures were even different. They both looked like clumps of white speckles on a black background. But still, if the head of the astronomy club had seen fit to report it, it was probably something that needed to be looked into. Besides, there were more than enough other indications that something weird was going on. "Rest assured that we will put our best efforts towards figuring this out. In the meantime, try not to worry yourself about it. You may go."

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your time." Chizuru bowed, and exited the office.

"All right, so what theories do we have?" Konoemon spun around in his chair, facing the half-dozen odd teachers that he had summoned to hear the report. He began to thumb idly through the contents of the folder, which consisted primarily of astronomical charts.

"I spoke with the head of the astronomy department this morning, and he confirmed that such an occurrence is unnatural." Takamichi plucked the folder out of the headmaster's hands. "As far as we know, there is no natural explanation." He flipped through a few pages. "According to this, the abnormality in the sky occurred at about the same time the World Tree's power began to fluctuate. It is highly likely that whatever is going on out there is primarily magical in nature."

"Of course it would be..." Konoemon sighed as he glanced out the window at the enormous tree at the center of the Academy's enormous campus. Even though the sun had not quite set, the tree's ethereal glow was already evident. The glow was, of course, due to the fact that the tree attracted magical energy like a giant magnet, and during especially strong fluctuations, caused the tree to emit light. The mundanes believed the glow was the result of some sort of glow-in-the-dark fungus, but this was the strongest fluctuation in over two decades. Whenever something like that happened, trouble always followed.

No exceptions.

* * *

><p>"There, look!" Applejack waved a hoof at the night sky above the orchards. "Now you see what ah was tryin' to tell you about?"<p>

"Give me a minute to catch my breath..." Twilight panted as she staggered through the farm's gate.

"I don't see anything," Spike grumbled as he hopped off of Twilight's back. "What was the point of coming out here if there isn't anything to see?"

"Because there's supposed ta be something to see, but there ain't!" Applejack stomped her hoof in the dirt before pointing it into the sky again. "See? Right there the stars just sorta stop."

Twilight blinked, trying to get her eyes acclimated to the darkness. It _did_ seem a bit darker than it usually did on a clear night, but missing stars couldn't possibly be the simplest explanation for that. Some of the constellations were finally starting to make themselves visible. A chill ran down her spine as she finally got a glimpse of the thing Applejack was babbling on about. Above one of the far hills, there was a dark patch in the sky.

And it wasn't a standard patch of dark either. It wasn't shaped right to be a cloud, and even if it had been, it still wouldn't have been cloud-like. It was missing a certain quality that Twilight couldn't quite put her hoof on. If it would have been a cloud, there would have been more...solid was the best word she could think of, but even that didn't seem like an apt description. If a thing more solid than a cloud was blocking the stars, it would have been more obvious. There would be starlight shining on it, casting some sort of shadow.

But whatever it was that was hanging in the sky, it was somehow even more solid than that. There wasn't any glimmer of light anywhere in it, no brightness peeking around the edges, or reflecting off. Somehow the thing wasn't even casting a shadow. As far as she could see, everything was evenly lit, if a bit dimmer than it should have been.

"Maybe Rainbow Dash let a stray cloud out or something..." Twilight was unable to stop the words from wavering as they left her mouth.

"Nah, that's not it." A bright blur dropped out of the sky with a thump, and Twilight found herself staring into Rainbow Dash's face. "Tonight was supposed to be totally clear for the festival, and I made sure that it was. You checked it yourself." Rainbow Dash sniffed as she turned away and patted herself on the chest with her foreleg. "I'll have you know that as soon as Applejack realized that something weird was going on, I flew right up there to take a look."

"Good!" If Twilight had had fingers, she would have crossed them for good luck. "So what is the thing that's blocking the stars?"

"I have no idea."

"Ugh." Spike rolled his eyes before flopping on the ground next to a tree, curling up between two of the roots. "Figures..."

"What do ya mean?" Applejack reared up. "There's gotta be something up there keepin' the stars from shinin'!"

"Chill out!" Rainbow Dash wrapped a leg around Applejack's neck and dragged her back onto all fours. "As far as I can tell, there isn't anything blocking the stars. The sky is totally clear, okay? That's not the problem."

"That doesn't explain anything!" Applejack huffed. "We still have no idea what's goin' on."

"Just relax for a minute." Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Rainbow Dash and Applejack stared at her for a moment before looking to each other. Rainbow Dash cocked her head to the side inquisitively. Applejack responded with a shrug. "Okay..." Both ponies looked back at Twilight.

"Did ya figure somethin' out?"

"A little. We know that the stars aren't shining, and we know that there's nothing blocking them..." Twilight turned back to the sky. It looked different now. Or rather, it technically looked the same, but as far as she was concerned, everything had changed, because now she wasn't looking for an object floating in the sky. That had been the problem. Because nothing was there. Nothing at all. Now she could see the sky clearly. And it looked as if someone had torn a piece out of it. "…There must be a problem with the stars. There's a hole in the sky."

* * *

><p>"Um...Negi-sensei..." Negi knew who was tapping on his shoulder before he even turned around.<p>

"Good afternoon, Nodoka-san." He dipped his head in her direction. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm fine, Negi-sensei. I just had a question about something...well...Yue also wanted to know, but she had to go to the Library Club right now, so she wanted me to ask..."

"Oh, is it something about the last English test? I admit I threw it together a bit hastily, and some of the questions may not have been clear. I've just been very busy preparing for the Mahora Festival and-"

"Um...it's not about that, actually..." Her face flushed slightly as she leaned in close. "It's um...about a magic thing..."

"Oh." Negi glanced up and down the hallway. It was full of students whom were moving from class to class. Not the best place for discussing such a matter. There had already been plenty of trouble keeping his magic under wraps. Asuna had figured him out only a few days in, and by the time the class had got back from their field trip to Kyoto, another half dozen students, including Nodoka and Yue, had been let in on the secret. And that wasn't even counting everyone who had turned out to be in on it from the beginning. "Um, we should probably talk about...things like that...somewhere else."

"Oh, yes, of course..." Nodoka took a step back.

"But still...I...uh..." Negi stopped for second to keep from tripping over any more words. "Exactly what did you want to ask about?"

"Well, Chizuru-san said that something strange happened in the sky last night. Haruna said that she heard it was something to do with magic..."

"Ah, that's..." He held up a hand as he whispered. "We think it might. We're still looking into it. Stop by my room this afternoon after classes let out and I'll try to fill everyone in on it at once."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you later then. Thank you." She made a quick bow before scurrying down the hallway.

* * *

><p>"All right, Spike. Send the letter." Held up by Twilight's magic, a small scroll hovered towards the diminutive purple dragon.<p>

"Will do." Spike's cheeks puffed up for a moment before he belched a large green flame at the roll of paper. It crackled briefly as the fire consumed it. The ponies watched as the glow faded into the night, fluttering towards the Princess's castle at Canterlot. The dragon curled back up next to the tree.

"Ya think that Princess Celestia knows what's goin' on?"

"If anyone knows what happened, it's her." Twilight patted Applejack with a reassuring hoof. As she had begun to compose her letter, the initial terror had begun to fade. There was probably some sort of perfectly logical reason for this, and they were all getting themselves worked up over nothing. "We should probably just get back to sleep. I'm sure when we get up tomorrow everything will be perfectly fine. There is absolutely no reason to worry."

"Uh, guys..." Rainbow Dash pushed her head between the other two ponies. "There kind of is..."

"Please, don't be a worrywart!" Twilight shoved Rainbow Dash's head away and smiled a little too widely at Applejack.

"You might want to take another look before you say that." Rainbow stuck her head back in between them.

"Why?" Twilight muttered through gritted teeth.

"Because that hole is getting bigger."

* * *

><p>"...so in short, we're unsure of what is causing this distortion in the sky." Negi turned away from the image projected on the wall of the dorm room to see if anyone was still paying attention. Asuna was slumped over the coffee table, half asleep, and Konoka was distracted with making another round of tea, but Nodoka, Yue, and Setsuna were all perfectly attentive and Kaede was either equally attentive, or asleep. It was hard to tell sometimes.<p>

"The simplest explanation is that someone is siphoning magical energy from the world tree to sustain a magical projection of some kind. The only alternative is that the sky has changed somehow, and that is quite unlikely." He cleared his throat. "Are there any questions?"

There was a rustle from the back of room as Yue raised her hand.

"What are the probable reasons that someone would create such a magical projection?"

"We're not sure." Negi shrugged. "Perhaps someone is trying to hide something. There was some other abnormality that they were trying to cover up, but the projection they used was incorrect. No other astronomers have noticed anything abnormal, so it seems to be limited to the area around Mahora."

"So you think there may be something up there?"

"That's our current theory." Every head in the room except for Asuna's turned to face Setsuna, who had finally spoken up. "The principal has requested that I perform an aerial inspection. Once this meeting has ended, I'm planning to do a flyby to see if I can confirm the presence of some kind of illusory magic."

"Are you sure that that's safe?" Nodoka cast a worried glance over her shoulder. "If nobody knows what's up there..."

"I should be fine." Setsuna folded her arms. "I will not have to approach very closely to determine whether or not there's an illusion, and that's the only reason I'm going up there in the first place. There will be a number of support mages nearby in the event that something happens. I should be fine."

"Oh...okay..." Nodoka quietly turned back to face her teacher.

"You had better be fine." Konoka chuckled as she gently bopped Setsuna on the top of the head. "If you aren't, I'm going to turn grandpa's head into an eggplant casserole for sending you up there."

* * *

><p>"Are you sure this is a good idea, Twilight?" Applejack shuffled along nervously at the back of the group. "Ah mean, shouldn't we stay away until we know what that thing is?"<p>

"Don't be such a scaredy-pony!" Rainbow Dash dipped out of the air to tap Applejack on the head.

"Ah'm not scared!" Applejack's mane bristled a little. "I just don't think it's all that smart to go messin' with stuff when we don't know what it is."

"I don't like it either, but it's the only way to figure out what we're dealing with." Twilight gulped as she forced herself to continue leading the other ponies toward the top of the hill. The gap of darkness was definitely larger than it had been, and if her eyes weren't fooling her, it looked like the edge of the darkness was starting to overlap with the top of the hill. It looked so out of place; sort of like someone had taken a painting of the scenery and poked a hole in it.

"Come on, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash buzzed by. "This is taking forever. I'm taking a closer look!"

"Wait! Don't go over there by yourse-" Twilight sighed as the pegasus zoomed towards the black blot at the top of the hill. Attempting to stop her would be a futile effort. "Be careful!"

The response was so faint that Twilight could barely make it out.

"Don't worry! I'll be fine!"

* * *

><p><em>"I'm not picking up any magical readings, other than some sort of pulse from the World Tree."<em> Setsuna examined one of the magical instruments strapped to her arm as she beamed the telepathic message back to the group on the ground. "If there is some sort of illusion up here, it's not magical."

_"What about electromagnetic readings?"_ Negi's voice bounced around inside her head.

_"Nothing out of the ordinary. There's something weird up here, but none of the meters are picking anything up. I'm going to move in a bit closer."_

_"All right. Be careful, Setsuna-san._"

_"Yes, please." _She rolled her eyes as she heard the Headmaster's voice in her brain._ "If something happens to you, Konoka will never forgive me."_

_"It's fine." _That was mostly true. There was absolutely no logical reason to suspect danger. Which actually made things worse. Ignorance was the one thing that couldn't be defended against. Still, whatever was up there was just as likely to be perfectly benign. There was reason to be cautious, but no reason to fear. Other than that weird sort of gnawing sensation.

At first Setsuna had attributed it to a combination of nerves and that tingling sensation she always got when she allowed her youkai powers to surface. But there was something else. Not necessarily magic. She was primarily a Ki user, but she knew what magical activity felt like, and this wasn't it. It wasn't Ki either. She had never experienced electromagnetic energy, but she had shocked herself on doorknobs a few times, and this sensation was so different that she knew it wasn't related to that either.

Even worse, it was impossible to tell whether the feeling was even physical. Part of it had to be; she had to make a concentrated effort to keep her hands from shaking. But not all of it. Part of it was definitely in her mind. It reminded her of that feeling she got during her graveyard shifts at campus security, when she wouldn't be able to stop herself from looking over her shoulder to see if someone was there, even though she knew that no one was there; and that if there was, she could have definitely taken them anyway.

She took a deep breath and pushed her wings against the evening air, lifting herself up. Even though the stars weren't visible in the light, if she squinted she could just barely make out an unusual distortion in the air, as if the sky were being reflected in a funhouse mirror.

_"I can make out the distortion, but other than that I'm getting nothing. I'll head back do-"_

The thought vanished from Setsuna's head as something quite literally appeared out of thin air. It was only about twenty feet in front of her, and to say that it was moving quite fast was a massive understatement.

"AHH!" The object clipped her wing as it sped by, sending Setsuna into a wild spin as she plummeted towards the World Tree. She grunted as she twisted herself in the air. She was still headed down, but at least now the world wasn't spinning around her. But the World Tree was getting far too close for comfort. An ugly burn spread through her shoulders as she spread her wings as wide as they could go, catching the air beneath them. Her feet brushed the upper leaves of the tree as she leveled out, gliding along the top of the foliage.

_"What happened?-! Are you all right?"_ Negi's voice. He had apparently been watching.

_"I'm fine. Something flew out of there! I'm going to see if I can catch it."_

She squinted at the horizon. Against the brightness of the setting sun, she could see the speck that collided with her. With a flap of her wings, she soared along after it.

* * *

><p>"Uggh...what just happened...?" Twilight wasn't directing the question at anyone in particular, which was a good thing because as soon as she opened her eyes, the first thing she realized that there was no one there to talk to anyway. Where Applejack and Rainbow Dash had gone was a mystery.<p>

The next thing she realized was that it was a good deal brighter out than it had been. It wasn't actually bright; the colors in the sky indicated that a sunrise or sunset was in progress, but there was much more light than there had been in the middle of the moonless Equestrian night.

The third thing that she realized (and was somewhat frustrated at herself that it wasn't the first or even second thing that she noticed) was that she was quite obviously not on that orchard hill in Sweet Apple Acres. Taking stock of her surroundings, she was in a treeless field. The only nearby greenery besides the grass were a few neatly trimmed hedges next to one of the many buildings that surrounded the field.

That was when the first stage of panic began to set in. Never in her life had Twilight seen buildings like this; they were enormous, and there were so many of them, all in different shapes. In the distance she could see odd towers jutting out of the landscape. The only time she had ever seen so many buildings of that size all in one place was in Canterlot, and even that seemed small compared to whatever it was she had stumbled into. In the distance beyond the buildings, she could just barely make out a series of rolling hills. And on top of one of those, silhouetted against the sun, was the largest tree she had ever seen.

"Okay, Twilight. Don't panic." She murmured. "You can do this. You may not have any idea what just happened, or where you are, but you're a smart pony. You can figure this out. You just have to think. Think. We were going up the hill, and that hole suddenly got bigger, and you were floating. Or maybe falling. Or something. And I know I saw Rainbow Dash fly by me, so she's probably around here somewhere so if I can find her we can get out of wherever it is we are, and back to Equestria, and the Princess will have figured out what happened..."

The mumble of vague reassurances continued as she hobbled onto her hooves. The book-filled saddlebags weighed heavy on her back, but she wasn't about to dump what were her only possessions at this point in time. She had absolutely no idea what to do outside of her vague idea of "find Rainbow Dash", and behind the bushes seemed like a reasonable start. She could start small. No need to worry about scouring all of those enormous buildings yet. Maybe Rainbow Dash was just behind the bush.

Twilight's heart dropped into her stomach as she craned her neck around the hedge. No Rainbow Dash. Oh well, couldn't worry about it. Just had to keep doing something or else panic would set in. There was a path next to the bush, so she might as well follow it. It had to go somewhere. Maybe Rainbow Dash had followed it too.

She had barely cantered a few steps before she heard voices from, the other side of the bush. She swallowed. Maybe those ponies were nice. They could point her in the right direction, maybe get her a map, and tell her where she was. With much trepidation, she began to saunter slowly out of her hiding place. And as soon as she saw the source of the voices she retreated as quickly as she was physically able of doing.

The books that Twilight had studied in both Canterlot and Ponyville were naturally full of all sorts of mythical nonsense. Merponies, eight-legged horses, all kinds of ridiculous ideas. But still, a few old mares' tales had turned out to be accurate. But out of all of them, she would never have guessed that such a creature existed in reality.

Around the other side of the bush, chatting nonchalantly about some indiscernible subject, were humans.

* * *

><p>"So you didn't get a good look at the object?" Konoemon sighed. Of course his hopes of getting any sort of a lead would be dashed.<p>

"Unfortunately not. It was moving too quickly." Setsuna shrugged. "All I could see was that it was blue. There were other colors in there, but it was mostly blue."

"I see." The Principal nodded. The description was nigh-useless, but it was all he had to go on. "I'll let the rest of the security team know. They're currently searching the area where the object disappeared. We'll let you know if we find anything."

"Shouldn't I go with them?" She began to stand up. "The more people we have searching, the faster we'll find- Oof!" She grunted as she found herself forced back down.

"They'll be fine!" Konoka poked her head over Setsuna's shoulder. "You need to relax after all of that. You almost got knocked out of the air, after all. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Well, uh...my wings do kind of hurt..."

"Okay then!" Konoka latched onto Setsuna's arm and hauled her out of the chair. "We can head back to my dorm room and I'll give you nice back rub. And maybe a wing massage."

"Wing...massage...?" The prospect of receiving that was..intimidating, to say the least. "I don't know if that's really-"

"You don't need Setchan right now, do you, grandpa?"

"No, I believe Mana will be quite alright leading the team on her own."

"Good! Let's go, Setchan!"

"O-of course, Ojou-sama." Setsuna stuttered as she followed Konoka out of the office. The other-worldly paranoid feeling in her spine was rapidly giving way to another, much more human-ish kind of tingle.

* * *

><p>Nodoka shivered as she walked along the sidewalk outside of the dorm. There was a distinct chill in the air due to the evening breeze, but that was not what caused it. The cause was the enormous disturbance in the sky. It had taken ten minutes of staring for her to even be able to make out where the thing was, but once she had noticed it, it was impossible not to see it.<p>

She didn't know it, but the trembling was caused by much the same feeling that Setsuna had experienced. It wasn't quite the same sensation, but they were similar enough that they could be considered two types of the same feeling; in this case, the division was along the mind/body dichotomy. Setsuna's trepidation was merely the result of proximity; she had been fine until she was actually close to whatever was up there.

On the other hand, Nodoka's uneasiness derived from the simple knowledge (or lack thereof) of something strange hovering above the World Tree. It wasn't so much the thing itself; for all she knew, it was just some sort of totally benign swamp gas. The fact that it was an anomaly to her didn't really matter. What bothered her was the fact that no one _else_ knew what it was, either.

Sure, finding out that magic existed had turned her entire world upside down. She was no stranger to magic weirdness. Since the time she had been let in on the secret, she had received mind-reading abilities, been petrified, been kidnapped by a demon, and was currently acquaintances with at least two demi-humans. The catch was that somebody had been there to explain all that to her, and once she could accept the fact "magic is real", everything else made sense. As long as all the pieces of the puzzle were there, everything was still consistent. Unfortunately, magic wasn't helping to explain the thing in the sky, and nobody was stepping forward with answers.

Nodoka trembled again as she looked up at the sky. She didn't want to look, and there really wasn't much to see at the moment; the disturbance was almost entirely covered by clouds. That was a bit of a consolation. If not for the fact that she couldn't get the thing out of her head, it would have at least given her a bit of normality. Even so, the fact remained that even though she didn't want to look at it, she felt compelled to.

Not that it was in any way directly affecting or controlling her (because it wasn't). It was more that it was too important to ignore. There was a nagging feeling the back of Nodoka's mind that the hole in the sky was significant, and that paying attention elsewhere would be a misuse of her time.

In the future, had Nodoka remembered that precise moment, she would have ultimately agreed with her past assessment. In the long run, the hole in the sky was far more significant than anything else there. She would also have noted that in the extreme short term, her focus ought to have been not on the sky, but on the ground, because that was the location of the bush that failed to notice was directly in her path.

"OW!"

Now Nodoka was experiencing another somewhat strange sensation, albeit one that wasn't totally foreign to human experience like the feeling that the distortion had caused. What she was currently feeling was the rather weird experience desiring pain for the sake of relief. One of her hands was in pain, just as one would expect it to be when it is scratched up and bleeding due to being dragged through a bush. The problem was her other hand. It didn't hurt at all, and whatever it was resting on was most certainly not a bush. It was too soft, too warm, too...fuzzy.

It was unimaginably more disconcerting to find that in a bush rather than simply scratching up both hands, like what was supposed to happen when one accidentally walks into a bush. As such, at that precise moment Nodoka would have gladly taken two hedge-pricked hands in exchange for the unpleasant experience of stumbling into something that was obviously not supposed to be there. Better a familiar pain than an unknown that could be any number of things. Of course, a day later she would consider her brief experience in the hedge the highlight of that day, but hindsight is always 20/20, after all.

Nodoka bit her lip as she slowly forced her head to look down. She inhaled sharply as she found herself staring into the largest eyes that she had ever seen. They were a deep purple, and they seemed be shaking. Nodoka was so transfixed by the stare that one of the last things she noticed about it was that it did not belong to a human face.

The realization made, her first reaction was quite natural: scream. Or at least to _try _to scream. All she managed was a babble of nonsense as she stumbled backwards. It was just as well, as the attempted scream died in her throat as she finally got a good look at what she had found.

Halfway out of the bush, scrambling to free itself from the branches was a small horse. A small, purple horse. A small, purple horse with a horn protruding from the unusually human-esque hair that hung over its forehead. Nodoka froze as the creature looked up at her, making eye contact. And in that moment most of Nodoka's fear vanished. She was no expert when it came to horses, but she could just _tell_ that it meant no harm. Something about the way the eyes were trembling. Never in her life had Nodoka seen a horse emote so clearly. And the emotion the horse's face was a mixture of confusion and fear.

Nodoka took a cautious step forward. Then she jumped back two steps as the horse suddenly threw its front hooves into the air.

"Please don't hurt me!"

Nodoka's eyes widened. The horse could talk. And it was a distinctly female voice.

"I...uh...don't worry, I won't hurt you..." she stuttered. "Just please stay there and be quiet..."

"Oh...okay..." The horse retreated partway back into the bush, keeping her eyes focused on the girl.

Nodoka fumbled around in her pocket for her pactio card. She had never been so happy that telepathy existed. Even in her thoughts, she couldn't help but stutter.

_"N-Negi-sensei, there's something out here that you should see..."_

* * *

><p><em>.<em>

* * *

><p>Well, there's the first chapter. It's quite a bit unlike anything I've tried to do before, so this whole thing is basically one big experiment. Hopefully it goes well. I have a fair bit of stuff planned, but whether it turns out well, I have no idea. Hopefully what I have so far is sufficiently entertaining. Also, for the record, the little blurb at the beginning is supposed to sound ridiculous.<p>

In any case, I'm curious about what everybody thinks of what I have so far, so reviews are welcome.

Thanks for reading.


	2. The Best and Worst Day Ever

_There are, in fact, many gods. That's with a small "g". I'm not even going to pretend to say that I know much about the big "G"; whether He exists, what He's like, etc. All I know is that if He's there, He's at the top of the totem pole. Or bottom. Whichever end of the thing the end-all, be-all is supposed to go at. What He says, goes, and that's that. So we won't talk about Him anymore._

_ Small "g" gods, to actually define the term for the purposes of this screed, are any persons who create a universe. The gods have various levels of control over their universes. Or rather, gods choose to have different levels of control over their universes. All the gods are, within the universes they create, omniscient. But some prefer to interfere at every step of the way, and others simply prefer to get the universe going and let it run on its own. _

_ The first of these options is uncommon, but there are documented cases of repeated divine intervention, even if it is not noticed as such by the residents of the universe. The second option is by far the more common, and most gods tend to go the deist route and interact very little, relegating themselves to the role of observer. _

_ Then there is the rarest of all: the god who wishes to merely observe, but is dragging into interfering by his own creation. The god, of course, is not forced to interfere, but if he chooses to subject himself to his universe in that way, that's the god's own decision._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2: The Best and Worst Day Ever.<br>**

Haruna fumed to herself as she strode resolutely across the campus, headed nowhere in particular. It was that stupid half-knowledge. _Everyone is hiding something from me! _That much she knew._ But what on earth is the big secret? We're friends, aren't we?_ That was where the "half" part of the "half-knowledge" came in.

_Ever since we got back from that field trip to Kyoto, Nodoka and Yue have been acting all strange. Something had to have happened. It's like they're...tighter? I don't know what word I'm supposed to use! But they were already friends. They were already as good friends as they could be without taking the whole relationship into romance territory... Maybe that's what happened! One of them must have confessed and that's why they're always together! They only told me that it was school stuff so that I wouldn't try to tag along! But which one of them? Probably Yue; Nodoka already has a thing for Negi, after all._

_ But why would they try to hide that from me? I mean, I know I'm the go-to person on this campus for information, but they're my friends! They'd trust me with that. Mostly. Maybe after Nodoka confessed to Negi, she got Yue in on it and now they have to keep things on the down low to keep from getting in trouble. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. If I were them, I probably wouldn't tell me about that._

_ But still, they're like never around anymore! Even if they are having some sort of torrid student-teacher love affair, they could at least hang out in the room more often. Being out of the loop like this sucks-_

Unlike Nodoka, Haruna's imagination was vivid enough that she didn't even require a distraction. If there had been any onlookers, they would have simply watched in bemusement as Haruna marched resolutely forward into one of the decorative trees that lined the edge of the plaza.

"OW!" Haruna rubbed her forehead, now fully aware of the tree that lay directly in her path. She was not aware, however, of the sounds of twigs snapping above her head as an object that had been resting in the branches of the tree began to tumble downwards. "I need to get a grip. I feel like I'm starting to lose my-" The noise in the tree was now loud enough to merit her attention. She looked up with just enough time to see a colorful (but mostly blue) blur barreling towards her face. "What th-"

CRASH.

Haruna once again rubbed her forehead as she began to pick herself up off of the ground, trying to figure out what had just landed on top of her. She blinked. Maybe she really had lost her mind. If she was still sane, she wouldn't be seeing a blue, rainbow-mane pony flopped on the ground next to the tree. And even in the event that the pony was real, in a sane world, it wouldn't be talking.

"Hey! What do you think you're do-" The pony's face turned a slightly lighter shade of blue than it already was. "Where the heck am I? What's going on!-?"

"Are you okay?" Haruna couldn't think of anything else to ask. Any of the obvious questions were just too absurd.

"I'm fine!" the pony grumbled as she got back to her feet. "What's going on? Me and Twilight were just investigating that patch of sky, and then it got bigger or something...Next thing I knew, I was here. Wherever that is. Where are we, anyway?"

"...Japan."

"Japan? Hmmm...doesn't ring a bell." The pony shrugged. "You have any idea how to get to Ponyville from here?"

"Ponyville?" Haruna cocked her head to the side.

"I guess not. Oh well. See you later." The pony turned around, and Haruna's jaw dropped. There were wings on the creature's back. And they were rapidly unfurling themselves. "Bye." The pony took a tremendous jump.

"WAIT!" Both the pony and the girl crashed to earth as Haruna managed to latch onto her back legs. "You really shouldn't do that!"

"Why not!-?" The pony glowered back at her.

"Uh...let's just say that there aren't a lot of talking ponies around here..."

"So?"

"If the school people find you, they'll drag you off somewhere. You need to lay low for a bit. If you go flying off like, that you'll have a bunch of helicopters chasing you down!"

"Helicopters? What are those?"

"I'll explain later." Haruna made an attempted at a non-evil smile. They didn't come easy to her, but she managed. "Just come back to my room for a little bit so we can figure out what you should do!"

"Fine." The pony's wings slowly folded themselves neatly against her back as she turned around and held out a hoof. "My name's Rainbow Dash. Fastest pegasus in all of Equestria. You may have heard of me."

"My name is Haruna Saotome." Haruna held out her hand, unsure of exactly what to do with it. _Oh well, this can't get any weirder._ She took hold of the extended hoof and gave it a shake. _I just shook hands...or maybe hooves...with a flying rainbow pony! This is the best day ever!_

* * *

><p>The situation had officially gone from "curiosity" to "crisis". Or at least in the minds of everyone who arrived on the scene of Nodoka's discovery immediately assumed. Priority number one was of course to get Twilight out of sight as quickly as possible. Once they had her hidden, then they could start to figure out what on earth they were supposed to do.<p>

Every last one of them was walking on eggshells back towards the dorm, which was inexplicably deemed the best place to go. Not because it was conducive to secrecy (if anything, it was the opposite), but because it was the closest and most convenient. Besides, a little additional weirdness would probably not be noticed.

Yue, Asuna, Setsuna, Konoka, and Negi set up a human perimeter of sorts, walking as briskly and closely together as they could manage without trampling on Twilight or Nodoka, who was doing her level best to keep both herself and the mysterious purple pony from hyperventilating as everyone else talked as loudly as possible to drown out the clopping of Twilight's hooves.

Negi's knuckles were white as he gripped his staff. It was extremely tempting to attempt to cast some sort of magical cloak over the group, but that probably wouldn't help. At least there didn't seem to be anyone else around.

A few minutes ago his heart had nearly stopped as he had seen Haruna on the far side of the plaza. Of all the people on campus, she was probably the second worst person who could possibly discover what was going on. Fortunately, she was too preoccupied lugging a giant garbage bag along behind her. Haruna was always up to something, but in this case it couldn't possibly be more important than the matter at hand.

* * *

><p>"Okay, you can come out now!" Haruna dumped the garbage bag on the floor of her room and quickly spun around to lock the door. When she turned back, she was greeted with a harsh stare from Rainbow Dash, who was halfway out of the bag.<p>

"Are you trying to kill me or something? Putting me in that thing and dragging me along?" She rubbed her head with a hoof. "Were you _trying_ to hit every bump along the way?"

"Sorry about that." Haruna shrugged. "I had to get you back here without anybody seeing you?"

"And why is that?" The pony kicked her way out of the plastic.

"Okay, let me explain." Haruna sat down on the other side of the coffee table. "I don't know where you came from, but-"

"Equestria." The pony interrupted. "From a town called Ponyville."

"Right..." Haruna mumbled. A town called "Ponyville" sounded like something that a six-year-old girl would make up. "Anyway, I don't know what things are like in…Ponyville...but here we don't really have any talking ponies."

"Where is 'here', exactly?"

"Uh...the country is called Japan. The town...well, we're at Mahora Academy, and it's probably big enough to qualify as its own town. We do have our own postal code, after all."

"So you're telling me that there are no ponies anywhere in this whole 'Japan' place?"

"Well...we have ponies..." Haruna scratched her head. "They just don't talk..."

"Okaaay...that's kinda weird." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Can you just tell me where the talking ponies are?"

"Um...about that...I don't know...that is to say..." Her voice trailed off. She hadn't really thought of how she was going to explain this.

"That is to say what?"

"Well, as far as anybody in Japan knows, or in the rest of the world for that matter, there aren't _any _talking ponies..."

"None?" Rainbow Dash cringed.

"None. As far as I know, you're the only talking pony anywhere on this planet."

* * *

><p>"So, what is your name?" Negi asked, clutching his pad and pen as if he were some kind of star reporter.<p>

"T-Twilight Sparkle."

"Okay, thank you..." He began scribbling.

Behind him, Nodoka received an elbow in the ribs from Yue, whom sat beside her.

"Nodoka, this would be a good time for you to bring out your artifact."

"Um, I don't think so," Nodoka murmured. "I mean, is it really okay to go into someone's mind like that?"

"I think that the present situation rather justifies extreme measures. We know next to nothing about what is going on, and anything that could shed some light on this event is well worth the trouble."

"Um...excuse me..." Both girls turned to see Twilight craning her neck around Negi, looking at them. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you talking about?"

"She has a magic book that can read peoples' thoughts." Yue jabbed a thumb at Nodoka. "She just doesn't like using it very often because it's an invasion of privacy."

"And you want her to use it on me?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry; we're not trying to interrogate you or anything." Setsuna held up a hand. "It's just that we don't have any idea of who you are or where you came from, and we want to be cautious. I don't think any of us believe that you mean any harm, but we just want to make sure."

"I guess I can understand that..." Twilight glanced across the room, noting all the eyes that were staring at her. She wished that they could see that she was more afraid of them then they were of her. "If it'll make things go faster, I guess I don't mind if she uses her mind-reading thing..."

"Oh...okay." Nodoka reached into her pocket for her Pactio card. "Adeat." There was a poof of smoke, and the card was gone, replaced by a large and extremely old-looking book. "Don't worry, Twilight, it doesn't hurt or anything."

"Good to know." Despite the reassurance, Twilight couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation as Nodoka carefully opened her artifact.

* * *

><p>"Come on, Rainbow Dash, I'm sure everything will get straightened out eventually."<p>

"Yeah, sure. I have no idea where I am, and you have no clue where I came from, and we both have no idea of how I'm supposed to get back." The pony folded her forelegs as she slumped onto the table. "Can I get some more cheese puffs?"

"Sure." Haruna tore open another bag and tossed it onto the table.

"Thanks." In half a second, Rainbow Dash's nose was stuffed into the food, feedbag style. It was half empty before she withdrew her face, eying the growing pile of empty wrappers on the floor beside her. "Uh...sorry about eating all of your food. We don't have a lot of this stuff in Equestria. These cheese things are really good, though."

"Don't worry about it." Haruna twiddled her fingers. "It's the least I could do. You're in the middle of an existential crisis after all."

"A what?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head.

"It's...um...sort of this thing where you doubt your own existence...or something... Yue explained it to me once, but I wasn't really paying attention."

"Who's Yue?" Rainbow Dash asked before stuffing her head back into the food.

"One of my roommates. I share this room with two other girls."

"I guess the two extra beds should have been a tip off..." the pony muttered between bites of Cheetos. "What are they like?"

"Well, Yue is really smart, but she never really does any homework or anything. She's obsessed with philosophy."

"Philosowhat?"

"Philosophy. Stuff like 'What is the meaning of existence?' and 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'"

"Sounds fun."

"Nodoka is my other roommate. She's really quiet and reads a lot. Quite an imagination though."

"So where are they now?"

"They had some sort of student conference with the teacher. I swear, ever since we got back from our class trip, they've had like a ton of meetings with him. Something weird must be going on. Although Nodoka does have crush on him, so I guess it makes sense..."

"A crush on the teacher?" Rainbow Dash snorted. "Weird. You sound like you have an interesting group of friends."

"Tell me about it." Haruna shrugged. "They said they wouldn't be back for a few hours. Claimed it was an emergency. At least it gives me some time to figure out what to do with you."

"What are you talking about? What are you going to do with me?"

"Well, we have to hide you somewhere or some government agents or something are going to drag you off somewhere?"

"Government agents?"

"Okay, okay. Let me explain this again." Haruna rubbed her forehead. "People are going to want to do experiments and stuff on you to figure out how you can talk and why you have wings. Because no ponies in our world do that. Trust me; you don't want to do that."

"Okay." Rainbow Dash's face was still blank.

"You know what?" Haruna scuttled over to the cabinet, on top of which rested a large television. "This movie explains it a lot better than I ever could." She reached into the cabinet and withdrew a DVD case.

"Men in Black?" Rainbow Dash tilted her head once again. "What is that thing?"

"Don't you have movies in Ponyville!-?" She rolled her eyes. "Seriously...do you have plays?"

"Well, yeah, but those things are really boring. Sometimes my friends would drag me to see them."

"This is kind of like a play, but they recorded it so you can watch it whenever. And it's definitely not boring. There's lots of action."

"Action?"

"Yeah!" Haruna grinned. She hadn't known the pony for long, but she could already tell what movie genres would be most appealing. "Lots of fights, big monsters, stuff blowing up!"

"Okay, I guess we could watch it..." There was a crunch as Rainbow Dash turned herself to face the television, sitting on some empty bags in the process.

"Trust me..." Haruna popped the DVD into the player. "You're going to like this."

* * *

><p>Nodoka's artifact sat closed on the counter, mostly forgotten. It had only taken a handful of questions from Negi to determine that the purple pony meant no harm and had even less idea of what was going on than Mahora did. Naturally, it hadn't taken very long for the interrogation to take a much more informal line.<p>

"...and that's how I ended up in Ponyville."

"So summoning the Elements of Harmony granted you magic powers?" Asuna asked.

"Not exactly…" Twilight answered. "I actually had magic powers before that. Unicorns are naturally magical."

"Then what did the Elements of Harmony do?" Nodoka stared intently, looking not unlike a young child listening to a bedtime story.

"Well, they allowed us to use the power of friendship to defeat Nightmare Moon and rescue Princess Celestia." Twilight rubbed her chin with her hoof. "Other than that, I'm actually not entirely sure what they really _do_..."

"I have a question." Yue raised a hand.

"Yes?"

"Is there any particular reason that Nightmare Moon's imprisonment ended automatically after 1000 years?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Twilight shrugged. "Only Princess Celestia would know that. She's the one who set up the whole thing."

"I see." Just as Yue lowered her hand, another question popped into her mind. "You said that the Princesses were in charge of the sun and moon, right?"

"Yes, that's right." Twilight nodded. "The Pegasi control the rest of the weather."

"Do you think that it's possible that this Nightmare Moon is responsible for what happened?"

"That was the first thing I thought when the stars above Ponyville started going out. Back when she was still Princess Luna she _was_ in charge of making sure that the stars rose on time. I actually had a few books with me about Equestrian astronomy, but I never got to look at them. Maybe if we looked through those we could-"

Everyone in the room jumped at the sound of a loud knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Asuna yelled.

"It's Negi, I'm back."

"What's the password?"

"Come on, Asuna, you know it's me. Open the door!"

"The password was your idea, and now you don't want to use it?" Asuna turned toward the door. "Just tell me what the password is!"

"Fine, fine. The password is 'fungus'. Now please open the door."

Asuna nodded at Twilight, who ducked her head under the table as Konoka opened the door. As the door clicked shut behind Negi, Twilight emerged from her hiding place.

"So what did the principal say?"

"He wants to have a meeting with you some time this week to see if your appearance can shed any light on the situation. He told me to make sure you stay out of sight until then. Maybe once we know more about what's going on, we can find somewhere for you to stay, but for the time being I think you should stay here."

"As if this room wasn't crowded enough already." Asuna's mumble was low enough that it passed unnoticed by everyone else.

"You'll have to keep out of sight if my other students show up," Negi continued, "but during most of the day you'll have the room to yourself."

"Oh, that should be fine." Twilight allowed herself a small sigh of relief. The thought of ending up locked in a cell had passed her mind, and had refused to leave. "I have a few books on astronomy with me, so maybe I can find something in there to explain what's going on."

"That certainly sounds like a plan." Yue stood. "Now that things are settled, we should probably be going."

"Already?" Twilight sighed. Figures. Just as she was finally starting to get herself settled, everyone was leaving.

"Yue is probably right." Nodoka took her artifact from the table. "It would be bad if Haruna got curious."

"Who's Haruna?"

"Our roommate." Yue rolled her eyes. "Let's just say that if she found out about you, it wouldn't be long before _everyone_ knew."

"I see."

"It was fun talking to you, Twilight." Nodoka bobbed her head in the pony's direction. "Maybe tomorrow you can tell me more about your friends."

"Yes, I would like that." The pony bowed back, unsure of how else to respond. "Goodnight."

* * *

><p>"So how many of those 'movie' things do you have?" Rainbow Dash stared at the screen, slack-jawed. She wasn't entirely sure what had been going on, but it looked awesome.<p>

"Oh, I've got hundreds of these." Haruna grinned. "I can show you how to work the DVD player so you can watch more of them while I'm in class tomorrow. Gotta give you something to do while you hide in here."

"That would be awesome." The pony tilted her head at Haruna, who had suddenly spun around to face the door. A moment of utter terror had gone through the girl's head as she recognized the sound of the doorknob turning. It only took another half second for her to remember that she had locked the door, but her heart was still pounding.

"Haruna, open the door." A loud knock accompanied Yue's voice.

"What's tha-"

"Quiet!" Haruna hissed into Rainbow Dash's ear as she clamped her hand over her mouth. "It's my roommates! Get under the bed!"

"Under the-"

"Just go! You should be able to fit under it." She gave the pony a shove. "Come on! You don't want them to find you!"

"Okay, okay!" Rainbow Dash grumbled as she wriggled her way under the stack of bunk beds against the wall of the room. It wasn't quite as tight as she had expected, although it was hardly spacious.

"Come on, Haruna!" More knocks. "Unlock the door! Why do you have it locked anyway?-!"

"Just a second..." Haruna called through the door as she slung a sheet over the edge of the bed and shoved her backpack over the gap. "I'm...uh...naked."

"Why are you naked?" There was a perceptible note of annoyance in Yue's voice.

"Well...uh...why wouldn't I be naked?"

"Um, Haruna..." This time it was Nodoka's voice coming through the door. "That doesn't really answer the question..."

"I just wanted to chill out a bit, you know?" She flipped the latch on the door, which immediately popped open. "I mean, I had the room to myself while you two were out doing whatever the hell it is you two were doing with Negi."

"So what were you doing while you were naked?" Nodoka peeked cautiously into the room as if she somehow expected that an unknown presence was lurking within.

Yue surveyed the mess that had been left in the room. "Apparently having an orgy of junk food indulgence, if all this garbage is to be believed."

"I was hungry." Haruna snorted. "Okay, my turn now. So what was so important that Negi called this emergency meeting thing?"

"Just some school stuff. Nothing important." Yue slumped on the sofa.

"You aren't even trying!" Haruna leaped to her feet and leveled a finger at her friend. "If you're going to make stuff up at least put some effort into it! There's something up and you guys are hiding it!"

"Calm down, Haruna." Nodoka put a hand on Haruna's shoulder. "There are just a few...issues on campus that Negi doesn't want us to discuss with anyone. Don't worry about it."

"Easy for you to say," Haruna grumbled as she watched Yue clamber into her bunk. If Yue was going to bed without taking a bath first, something weird _had_ to be going on. Either that or she just was just tired from the meeting running late, but that solution was too easy. Haruna could see the glint of Rainbow Dash's eyes peeking out from a gap in the sheet that was draped over the bed. Maybe this meeting had something to do with the pony's mysterious appearance.

_Naaah..._

* * *

><p>"Dear Princess Celestia,"<p>

The ballpoint pen made a scratching noise as it scribbled the words onto the flat sheet of paper. It wasn't quite the same as a quill and parchment, but it was still workable. The human inhabitants of the weird world that Twilight had stumbled into were mildly confused about how she planned to make use of the implement without opposable thumbs. And she naturally found their confusion to be a bit confusing. Apparently telekinesis was as rare in their world as opposable thumbs were in hers.

"Today I learned that you can make friends with others no matter who they are, even if they're from an entirely different world..."

The pen lifted off the paper. The pony stared at the last three words she had written. She wasn't in Equestria. She wasn't even the same world as Equestria. There was no Princess Celestia in this world. Even if there was, Spike wasn't there to send the letter. Everypony she had ever known was completely out of her reach. Her saddlebags, filled with half a dozen hastily-grabbed books, was the only remaining part of her world. If Equestria was even still around, it was so far away that it might as well not exist.

Her horn sparkled for a moment as the paper crunched itself into a ball and rolled off the table into the trash. She continued to stare blankly at the empty desk. Her mind was filled with the desire to do something, anything that would put her mind on anything other than her current situation. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do.

Leaving the room was an impossibility at the moment. A nagging doubt at the back of her mind pointed out that she couldn't trust this Negi person any more than she could trust anyone else, but at the same time the idea of skepticism was impossible. None of these "people" had done anything but be nice, if a little wary of her. And that was completely understandable.

Although they must not have been too leery; the two girls were sleeping quite soundly, and despite a decent bit of tossing and turning, the boy was obviously sleeping quite soundly. As she made the observation, she immediately felt the mountain of fatigue that had built up come crashing down onto her eyelids. How long had it been since Applejack had knocked on the door of the Ponyville library?

There was a spark of magic, and the switch on the desk lamp flipped off. There was nothing to do now but rest. Maybe when she opened her eyes to the morning light, she would see the inside of the library. Then she would rub her eyes and make some sort of comment to Spike about the weird dream she just had, and then she could go have breakfast and then she would feel much better.

She closed her eyes as she curled up on the sofa. It wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't feel like this. Dreams didn't tire you out. Never in her life had she dreamed anything that even remotely resembled this. Then again, she had never been sucked into a giant hole in the sky before, either. Maybe when she finally got around to looking through those books she could shed some light on the situation. But for now, her head felt it like it was being squeezed in a vice, and the only remedy for that was some sleep. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into her forelegs.

* * *

><p>Twilight wasn't exactly sure how long she had been sleeping. It seemed like she had barely closed her eyes, but her mind was in so much of a whirl that the only thing she knew for sure was that it was still dark. She wasn't s<em>ure<em> that she had really heard anything, but she also wasn't sure that she hadn't. A moment later her ears confirmed the unfortunate truth that there had, in fact, been a noise. A sort of scratching rustle was apparently working its way across the floor. And it was getting closer.

She tried not to breathe as the sound stopped. For a brief moment, she wondered where it had gone. Then she tensed even more as the vibrations on the fabric informed her that whatever was making the noise was now scurrying along the couch. She could practically feel it slow down as it approached the end of the couch where she had situated herself.

"Well, well, well." A scratchy, reedy voice whispered out of the darkness. "What do we have here...?"

"EAAAHHHH!" Twilight catapulted off of the sofa as she felt _something_ brush softly across her hindquarters.

"What is it!-? What's going on!-?" There was a crash as Negi tumbled out of his nook, still wrapped in his blanket. "Are you okay, Twilight!-?"

"What the hell is with this racket?" Asuna voice came out of the darkness. "Negi, get the lights on!"

Twilight's eyes burned as the room lights flickered to life. Even though she was half-blinded by the brightness, she could just make out a wriggling shape on the sofa, right where she had been.

"Dammit, you stupid ermine!"

The pony watched in confusion as Asuna took hold of the object, hefted her arm back, and flung the thing as hard as she could towards the far wall. There was a muffled splat.

"Asuna, why did you do that?" Negi scuttled over to the wall where the thrown had landed.

"That's what he gets for sneaking in here in the middle of the night and waking us all up." Asuna huffed as she climbed back into her bed.

"Nee-san...that was rough..." the mysterious voice echoed out from behind the desk. As Twilight's eyes began to adjust to the light, she was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be an elongated white rat with an overly large tail. "I was just curious about our visitor." The creature pointed a short appendage at the pony, who was huddling behind the sofa.

"Oh, Chamo, you're back." Negi grinned as he put his arm on the table, allowing Chamo to scurry up onto his shoulder. Twilight felt a chill on her spine as the ermine stared intently in her direction.

"I sure am. You want to fill me in exactly what happened while I was away?"

* * *

><p>Apple Bloom sighed as she glanced at the clock. An hour and a half ago, Applejack had left Sweet Apple Acres to go get Twilight. An hour ago, Apple Bloom had decided to make snacks for when everyone inevitably came back to the house. Half an hour ago, Apple Bloom's hunger had gotten the better of her and she had eaten all of the snacks. Five minutes ago, she had started to worry about her big sister's whereabouts. Currently, she was contemplating going out to search for them. In fact, she was on her way out the door when she heard a familiar voice from behind her.<p>

"Hey, Apple Bloom!" The filly turned around to see Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo poking their heads through the window. "We're going to go try to convert the tree house into a house boat! Want to come?"

"Sure!"

Five minutes later, whatever that thing was that Applejack had been so worried about was completely forgotten.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Well, there's chapter 2. I wasn't able to fit in everything I wanted to, but it was long enough as is, and it's at a good point to cut it off. This chapter is geared more toward characterization than action; the primary subject is how Twilight and Rainbow Dash react to their new surroundings. I probably could have milked it for more existential angst, but that's not the point of the story and it would have dragged this out even longer. The actual plot should proceed a bit in the next chapter, when I actually get around to writing it.<p>

Reviews are greatly appreciated, as is any advice you may have.

Thanks for reading. ;p


	3. Coping

_While the gods are typically omnipotent within their universes, very few are omniscient. It's quite an odd phenomenon, as the attributes of divinity are typically identified as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. But that's not the kind of godhood we are talking about._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: Coping with Adversity, Revelations, and Reunions<br>**

"_Log #1_

_May 22nd._

_It's been two days since I arrived here. I decided that even though I have no way of contacting Celestia or any other ponies I should still write down my thoughts. It should help me calm down a bit if I can get everything onto paper. Writing things out has always helped me organize my thoughts, so hopefully it will keep me from freaking out too much. Here goes._

_I mean, I had read about humans before, but I never thought that they really existed. When I found out that this world had humans in it, I just wanted to hide from them. That didn't work out too well. One of them stumbled into the bush where I was hiding and found me. The good news is that she turned out to be really nice. I'm not sure what I had been expecting, but it caught me off guard for some reason._

_She told me that I had appeared in a giant, city-sized school where she was a student. She called her teacher using some sort of magic, and he brought some other students out and took me back to their dormitory. Apparently, here, not everyone knows about magic, and because there aren't any other unicorns or talking ponies here they thought I might scare somepony or something._

_While I was there, they asked me a bunch of questions about whom I was and where I was from. At first I was a little suspicious, but I'm pretty sure that I can trust them. I think they were even scared of me. It never really occurred to me that they didn't really know what was going on either. We talked for quite a while; they were curious about Equestria, and I had a lot of questions about wherever it was that I've ended up._

_There were a couple of humans that I got to know a little. Negi was their teacher. It's a little strange, because he's actually younger than his students, and he actually lives in the building with them. Apparently it's one of those schools where the students stay there all the time. It reminds me a little of when I left home to go study under Princess Celestia. He was very polite, although he seemed really agitated about something. I guess he has a lot on his mind, being a teacher and everything._

_The girl who found me was named Nodoka. She reminds me a little bit of Fluttershy. She's quiet, but she was also really nice. She talked to me a little right after she ran into me. I think she was just as shaken as I was, but she helped me calm down. It's probably a good thing that she found me like that; I don't know what I would have done otherwise._

_Nodoka is one of the people in Negi's class who do know about magic. She actually had this magic book that lets her read people's thoughts. I let her use it on me for a few minutes. It was kind of creepy, but she didn't use it for long and afterward they didn't seem to be as scared of me, so I guess it was worth it. Nodoka told me later that she doesn't like using too much because it feels weird to look into somepon- somebody else's mind like that._

_Negi said that he would take me to talk to the school principal about what to do. Until then, I'm going to stay in his room and do some research. Two of Negi's students are also in the room with him. Asuna can be a little grouchy, but she's not too bad when you get to know her. Konoka is really nice, and she's a really good cook too. They're in class most of the day though, so I'm usually alone in the room._

_There's also Chamo. He's an ermine. Asuna says that he's a jerk and a pervert, but he seems nice enough to me. It's actually kind of nice to have him around; I like having another non-human to talk to. He comes in and out during the day, so I don't get too lonely. He even curled up to sleep with me. It was sort of like having a little teddy bear with me, although he wriggles around a bit in his sleep. But it's not like I was really going to sleep all that well anyway._

_Nodoka got an encyclopedia out of the library for me so that I can learn more about this world while I waited to meet the principal. (Chamo said he could show me this thing called the internet with even more information on it, but Asuna said that I'm not ready for that yet). So far I've managed to keep myself occupied by reading it. This world is sort of like Equestria, but there are some really weird differences. The humans don't have any control over the weather at all; it just happens on its own and they have to deal with it. They don't have cutie marks either, so it takes them a lot longer to figure out what they want to do._

_I guess that writing about all the differences between Equestria and this world would take a really long time, so I should probably leave that for later when I find out more about where I am. They call it Earth, but that seems to be a name for the entire world rather than just the part that they live in. Negi said that there's actually far more in this world than just Earth and it's up in the sky or something. I thought he might have been talking about floating cities like Cloudsdale, but he meant something else._

_Anyway, apparently there was a disturbance in the sky here as well. I have a few of the books that were with me when I got sent here, so there might be something in those books that will help explain what happened both here and in Equestria. Nodoka says that the school has a very large library, so there might be some books in there as well that will help us understand what happened. I actually think that I can hear Negi coming back now, so I guess the first journal entry will have to end here, even though I have a lot of other things I want to write down._

* * *

><p>"How's your journal coming along?" Konoka asked as she looked up from the stove in the corner of the room.<p>

"It's going fine, I guess." Twilight turned around awkwardly. The chair was obviously not made to be used by a pony. "It took me a while to get used to this." She pointed a hoof at the ballpoint pen that was hovering beside her head. "I'm used to using a quill. This is way more convenient though. I don't have to worry about knocking the inkwell over."

"You still had to use inkwells in Equestria?"

"Yeah, I guess we never got around to figuring out how to-" She stopped as Negi burst into the room, clutching a giant stack of papers in his arms.

"Good afternoon, Twilight. Are you having a good day?"

"I suppose so." Twilight sighed as she closed the journal. "I've been doing a lot of reading, same as usual. It hasn't been too bad, although I have to admit I'm getting a little tired of being in this room all the time."

"I have good news about that, actually." He grunted as he dumped the papers onto the table. "I was talking to the principal again and he says that he'll be able to meet with you first thing tomorrow morning. He's already thinking about possible places for you to stay, so if all goes well you won't have to be cooped up in here for much longer."

"That's great!"

"It's good to hear that grandpa is finally getting his act together." Konoka chuckled as poked at the food in her frying pan. "I've been bothering him all day about making time for the meeting."

"Well, he has been very busy lately." Negi shrugged. "I mean, he's been consulting with experts all over the place trying to figure out exactly what's been going on."

"So is there anything that I should do before the meeting?" Twilight asked as she stuffed her journal into her bag. "Do I need to dress up or anything?"

"You'll be fine the way you are," Konoka called out from behind a haze of steam. "Grandpa doesn't really care much about stuff like that. You should just relax. It's not like he's going to interrogate you or anything. Don't worry about it too much."

"That's sure easy to say..." Twilight began to climb off the chair. "I mean, even if he does find somewhere else to stay, what am I supposed to do? Am I just stuck here? Do I just hang around until somepony figures something out? Am I just going to-" She paused, recognizing the sound of a laugh being stifled. Or, rather, a failed attempt at a laugh being stifled. And it was definitely female.

"Sorry..." Konoka giggled. "It's just that the 'somepony' stuff is so adorable..."

"Ugh..." Twilight crawled onto the couch and curled herself up. The last thing that she wanted was another reminder that she wasn't in Equestria anymore. So naturally, even the inanimate objects seemed to be hellbent on pointing out that fact at every available opportunity. Even when she had tried to lose herself in the journal, every few seconds the pen would reflexively flick towards the upper right corner of the desk. That was where she normally kept her inkwell on her desk back in her library in Ponyville. It was hard not to think about how far from home she was when every time she got a rude reminder of the fact every time she forgot that she wasn't using a quill.

"Are you alright? Twilight?"

"Huh!-?" She snapped out of her funk to see Negi's worried face looking at her.

"Are you alright?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just a little stressed." She blinked a few times, hoping it would clear her mind as much as it cleared her eyes.

"Well don't be worried. I'll make sure that everything gets taken care of." Negi smiled broadly as he put his hand on the top of Twilight's head. "I'll make sure of that."

"Thanks..." She closed her eyes as she rested her head on her forelegs. There was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that the pat on the head would normally be considered condescending, but at the moment she didn't care. Something about him calmed her down, and that was the most important thing at the moment. He had been trying so hard to help her that she couldn't help but feel at ease. After all, the one time she had managed to forget where she was had been the night before during her conversation with Negi, comparing their respective magical styles. She never would have expected that the one thing that would get her mind off of home was talking about how different it was from where she had ended up...

"I'M BACK!" There was a crash as Asuna kicked the door open. Her arms were wrapped around what appeared to be a gigantic hunk of sod. "I brought some grass for Twilight!"

"Oh...uh..." Twilight eyed the tangle of dirt in Asuna's arms. There was barely enough grass on the thing to make a decent appetizer, but the girl had obviously gone out of her way to bring it, and after two days with no foliage, it actually looked quite appetizing. "Thanks..."

"Oh, good!" Negi exclaimed as he popped out of his seat. "You remembered."

"Yeah, I remembered," she grunted. "Where do you want me to put this thing? It's freaking heavy."

"Just give me a moment." Negi scrambled over to where Asuna was standing. "I'll get you a newspaper or something to put it on." He turned back to Twilight. "I thought you might want some, so I had her pick some up on her way back from art club."

"Thank you." Twilight could smell the turf from across the room. It wasn't quite the same scent as Equestrian grass, but it was still good enough to make her hungry. The floor trembled as Asuna dumped the sod on the coffee table.

"You're welcome," Asuna mumbled as she flopped onto the couch next to Twilight, coughing into her fist a few times before finally relaxing.

"Asuna, you're getting dirt all over the couch!" Konoka shook a spatula at her roommate. "Why don't you go clean up before we eat?"

"Fine, fine..." She pried herself off the couch with a groan and began to shuffle towards the door. "Oh, that reminds me..." She turned around. "You're meeting with the Principal tomorrow, right?"

"Yes. Negi arranged it for me."

"Well, you might want to get cleaned up a little bit before the meeting. I mean, nothing personal, but it's been like three days, and you haven't had a bath or anything yet, and the room is starting to get a bit...horse-y."

"Asuna, that's rude!" Negi gasped. "You can't say something like that to a guest!"

"Oh, come on!" She rubbed her nose. "Don't say that you haven't noticed. It's not like she can help it or anything, but just look at the couch. It's got purple hair all over it."

"Still..." Negi crossed his arms. "It just isn't polite to come out and say it like that..."

"No, she's right..." Twilight smiled awkwardly as she examined the sofa, noticing the scattering of purple for the first time. "I really do need a bath or something." She arched her neck back at took a quick sniff of one of her flanks. "Eagh." She cringed. "Yeah, a bath would probably be a good idea. I wouldn't want to smell bad or anything tomorrow. Do you have somewhere where I could take one?"

"There's a community bath at the end of the hallway," Konoka offered. "Maybe we could sneak you out of the room."

"Yes, that would probably be the best option." Negi put a hand to his chin and began to stare into space, looking unnecessarily pensive. "Tonight would probably be best. Policy is for everyone in the dorm to stay in their rooms after midnight, so there shouldn't be anyone in there."

"Sounds like a plan!" Asuna gave Negi a pat on the back; one hard enough that it could qualify as a slap. "And you might want to show Twilight how to use this." She snatched a lint roller off of the counter and pressed it into Negi's hands. "Sooner or later somebody who's not in the whole magic thing is going to come in here, and they're going to be curious about the purple hair." She sniffed. "And I think I might be allergic to horses..."

* * *

><p>"Do all of you really need to be here?" Twilight mumbled.<p>

"Technically, no," Yue answered as she scrubbed the pony's back. "But the most efficient way to get you from your room to the bath was to surround you with people."

"Besides, it'll go a lot faster if we all help," Nodoka added. "You might want to close your eyes for a moment." Twilight complied as Nodoka kneading shampoo into her mane.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to this kind of thing," Chamo commented as he watched from the edge of the water. "Communal bathing is par for the course around here."

"Why are you even here?" Asuna looked back over her shoulder. "You aren't even doing anything. Why don't you take lookout duty?"

"Nah, I'm fine where I am."

Asuna rolled her eyes at the ermine before turning back to her post. "Why do I even ask? A bunch of girls in the bath? Of course he's going to...what the heck is that...?" She squinted into the darkness trying to discern whether the figure in the hallway was actually there, or just a figment of her imagination. As the figure began to solidify in her vision, it became evident that it was the latter. She spun around. "Somebody's coming! Everybody get in the water."

Ten seconds later, Twilight found herself squashed behind the other girls against the edge of the pool underneath a large, overhanging plant, trying to stay as quiet as possible.

"I thought no one else was supposed to be in here at night!" Konoka whispered.

"They _aren't_supposed to be here," Asuna grumbled. "At least we had special permission from Negi..."

"Shhh…" Yue elbowed her into silence as the main door of the bath squeaked open. Yue groaned as she heard a familiar voice echo through the bath chamber.

"Okay, you can come out now!"

"Of course it had to be Haruna..." Yue mumbled. She silenced herself as a loud rustling filled the air, followed by a loud gasp and a voice that she didn't recognize.

"Eaah! Were you _trying_to suffocate me or something?"

"Oh shut up." Haruna again. "It was the only way to get you in here without someone seeing."

"Oh, wow." The other voice seemed to be ignoring Haruna's explanation in favor of admiring the size of the bath. "This place is pretty nice."

"Yeah, it really is. Now get in the water before somebody finds us."

"Come on, just give me a few minutes to fly around first. I haven't gotten to stretch my wings since I got here."

"Well, you can't fly in here. If someone saw you, even I wouldn't be able to explain it!"

Nodoka leaned over in an attempt to hear better. She knew the voice that Haruna was using. It was the voice Haruna used when she was arguing against something that she actually wanted. Naturally, this didn't happen often, so it was quite recognizable.

"Hey, after keeping me under your bed for the last few days, you owe me! Besides, I already told you about all the awesome tricks I can do. You know you want to see them."

"Well, yeah. Just not now."

"I think I recognize that voice..." Twilight began to sidle along the edge of the pool to get a better look. As she attempted to peek out from under the plant, she felt a gentle tug on her tail. She turned back to see Nodoka shaking her head.

"If Haruna sees you, we're all going to get in a ton of trouble. Everybody will find out about you!"

"I'll be careful." Twilight lowered herself into the water as she slowly peeked out from behind the leaves. She could see a human with long black hair and glasses, shaking a fist and yelling at some unseen entity.

"Will you get in the water already? We don't have all night!"

"Oh, just give me a minute to stretch my wings! I haven't been able to fly at all."

Twilight tried to breathe evenly. The voice almost certainly belonged to Rainbow Dash. But then, her entire world had pretty much collapsed in on itself a few days back. If that could happen, it was entirely possible that it was a coincidence, and whoever it was only sounded exactly like Rainbow Dash. And apparently had wings.

"Well, if you're going to waste time fluttering around like that, could you at least do one of these tricks you've been blabbering about for the past two days?"

"Sure! How about a Calculated Ricochet Agility Super Hyperdash?"

"I have no idea what that is, but it sounds awesome! Go for it!"

"Okay, here we go!"

Twilight could hear the rapidly accelerating flapping of wings. On the one hoof, the sound was reassuring. She had probably heard it a hundred times; it was unmistakable. Rainbow Dash was on the other side of the plant. On the other hoof, Rainbow Dash's wings only sounded quite like this in a very specific situation: when she was gearing up to perform some sort of epic flight maneuver. As in, the types of tricks that almost certainly couldn't be performed inside the bath.

She considered calling out a warning. Or simply sticking her head out of her hiding place and calling to her friend. After all, if this Haruna person already knew about Rainbow Dash, it couldn't get too much worse-

Twilight snapped out of her contemplations at the sound of a loud splat directly above her. She cringed. That sound was slightly less common, but Twilight still recognized it. Rainbow Dash tended to make that same sound when she miscalculated her high-speed entrances through Twilight's library window.

"EAAHHH!" The combined sounds of a splash and half a dozen screams erupted from the hiding place as the multicolored pegasus crashed into the water. For a few moments, the bath was a tangle of churning water, soap, and rapidly flailing limbs.

"What the hell?" Haruna cocked her head at the splashes and screams that were echoing from the other side of the pool. She didn't really know anything about pegasi, but she was quite sure that it would take more than one of them to raise such a ruckus. It was also more than a little suspicious that more than a few of the screaming voices sounded familiar.

As she began to scramble to a better vantage point, she could make out a group of figures scurrying out of their hiding place. Two of them were ponies. One of them was Rainbow Dash. The other one she didn't recognize. The rest of the people were human. And she recognized all of them. They were her classmates. They froze as they noticed her standing on the edge of the pool, hands on her hips.

"What on earth is going on here?"

* * *

><p>"Well, I was flying around, trying to get a better view, and then I looked down and everything was like way too far away. I tried to fly back down, but everything started spinning and you were floating in the air for some reason; like the hill that had just moved out from under you. I tried to grab on, but for some reason I couldn't go in the right direction. I couldn't even see where the ground went. Then I could see it again, but it wasn't Ponyville. It was...wherever it is we are."<p>

"So when you appeared here, you were still conscious and still in the air?" Twilight swam out of the way as Rainbow Dash rushed past, using her wings to propel herself across the bath.

"Yeah, so I flew down and figured that I should probably hide somewhere until I figured out where I was so I hid in a tree. Then Haruna found me, stuffed me into a bag and dragged me back to her room. So I've basically been hiding from her roommates under her bed, and watching movies while they're out. You should see these movie things! They're like these pictures that move around and stuff, and there are explosions and robots and people flying around in space! It's so awesome! You really need to see it sometime."

"Uh…that sounds...interesting..." Twilight answered, not sure at all what her friend was talking about.

"Yeah, it was pretty cool. What were you doing all this time?"

"Well..." The most accurate answer was something along the lines of "trying not to have a nervous breakdown", but that probably wasn't exactly what Rainbow Dash was asking. And Twilight's nerves were still more than a little jittery; the last thing she wanted to do was actively focus on that feeling. "Mostly I kept a journal and read up on the history of this world."

"Shoulda figured you'd still be studying..." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

"Well, I don't know how long we're going to be stuck here, so I figured I'd learn about where I am. I also had a few of my astronomy books with me, so I've been looking through them to see if I can figure out what happened."

"So, did you find anything?"

"No..." Twilight reluctantly admitted. "The only thing I can think of is that Luna is reverting back into Nightmare Moon. She controls the night sky, and it even took place during the No-Moon festival. The whole thing just seems very suspicious."

"Her again?" The pegasus flopped onto her back once again. "I thought she was on our side now. She did a public apology and everything. Even Princess Celestia said she was okay."

"I know, but we can't be sure. I can't think of anypony else who's powerful enough to do something like this..."

"Well, if she shows up again, we'll just have to summon the Elements of Harmony again." Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs. "We beat her once and we can do it again!"

"But there are only two of us..." Twilight answered. "We can't summon them like that."

"Eh, we don't need all of them!" Rainbow Dash smacked the water with a hoof. "We totally got this by ourselves. We only need two elements!" She thrust the hoof at Twilight. "You've got the magic-" She patted herself on the chest. "And I've got the...uh... Awesomeness!"

"I think you mean 'Loyalty'," Twilight responded dryly.

"Yeah, that. Whatever." Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in the air. "We'll be able to take her out. Pow!" She punched the water.

"I kinda hope I'm wrong, and it isn't Nightmare Moon..." Twilight dodged Rainbow Dash's splashing. "I got to talk to Princess Luna for a little bit after the Gala and she seemed really nice, like she was really sorry for everything that she had done."

"Well, maybe you're wrong then. That's happened before, hasn't it?"

"Yeah..." Twilight sighed. "But this is the one time I actually hope I'm not right..."

* * *

><p>There had been a number of points in Haruna's life where she had received a revelation so stunning that it resulted in a whole new epoch in her existence. Specifically, the number was two. The first revelation had been her discovery that she enjoyed drawing and didn't suck at it. It had occurred at the age of eight, when some unwitting relative had left an illustrated collection of the works of H.P. Lovecraft next to a box of crayons. The result was the most realistic depiction of the Great Old One ever put to paper; to the point that it was eventually burned, sealed in a canister, and buried.<p>

But the second revelation dwarfed Haruna's discovery of her artistic ability. She would have killed for magic. Not literally, but in a figurative sense, she would have given almost anything to have made that dream a reality. X-ray vision, flight, turning lead into gold, turning herself into an axlotl, magical mustache summoning powers...she would have taken anything. So naturally, when she discovered not only that magic did in fact exist, but that her teacher and two best friends were totally in on it, the feeling was comparable to getting a pony for Christmas.

Of course, the fact that it was all going on under her nose made it more like the pony had actually been there all along, and had only been revealed on Christmas. And _then_ there was the fact that the revelation in question was accidental, so it was _really_like waking up on Christmas morning to discover that your family had been hiding a pony from you for your whole life, and the only reason you found out about it is because they didn't realize that you would get up early to go to the bathroom. So it was an awkward revelation with a few awkward questions involved, but the revelation in question was so awesome that you can momentarily forget that you've been left out of the loop. So maybe it isn't like getting a pony for Christmas at all, other than the fact that it was in fact a literal pony that accompanied the revelation.

"Okay, stop..." Konoka held up a hand. "Let's go back to the beginning, okay, Haruna?"

The girl just nodded dumbly.

"Good." Konoka stood up and gestured for Haruna to take her seat. "You're going to want to sit down for this."

"Okay..." Haruna let herself plop onto the bench next to Yue. Her tremendous tolerance for absurdity was getting closer to its limit than it had been in years.

"Negi is actually a mage."

"What." Haruna's eye began to twitch. "But how is that-"

"Shh." Konoka held up a finger. "You should probably ask him to explain his background to you. Long story short, several of our classmates have been let in on it. Asuna was the first. She found out shortly after he arrived. A few others, including myself, Yue, and Nodoka first learned about Negi's nature during the class trip. Several students were also aware of the existence of magic before Negi even arrived. Setsuna, Evangeline, Chachamaru, and Mana all knew. In addition, a number of faculty members at Mahora are mages. My grandfather is actually the head of the magic association in this region. Oh, Setsuna is actually part Tengu, and Evangeline is actually a vampire and several hundred years old. Also, Chachamaru is a robot."

"Eh?" Haruna's brain grounded to a halt. Even for her, this was far too much information to process in far too short a time.

"Negi's here!" Asuna called. Once again, she had been relegated to her position as lookout. The diminutive teacher scurried around her.

"What's going on?" He tilted his head at the bath, where Twilight and Rainbow Dash were splashing around as they caught up with each other. "Where did the blue pony come from?"

Yue stood up and approached her teacher as Nodoka and Konoka began to attend to Haruna.

"She apparently appeared around the same time Twilight did, only Haruna found her before anyone else. Somehow she managed to hide her in our room. I'm rather embarrassed that I failed to notice the pony's presence. Perhaps I was too distracted by Twilight to notice. It does explain why our room was starting to smell rather pony-like, though."

"How did she manage that?" Negi asked, regarding Rainbow Dash's size with curiosity.

"She stuffed me under her bed, that's how." Rainbow Dash stuck her head out of the water. "Sooooo cramped. Dusty too. I barely even fit under there."

"That's because you ate like all of my snacks!" Haruna snapped. "I've never seen anyone eat so many Bugles! Is that what screwed up your little trick?" She pointed at the circle of cracks on the ceiling.

"Shut up!" Rainbow Dash sniffed. "I'm just rusty. I haven't been able to fly at all since I got here, and my wings hurt from being crammed under your bed. Give me some open space and a little warm up time and BAM!" She thrust a hoof into the air. "It'll be so awesome you won't even believe it! When do I get to go outside, anyway?"

"We're working on that, miss...uh..." Negi's voice stumbled to a halt.

"Oh, right, I forgot to introduce here!" Twilight threw a foreleg over Rainbow Dash's shoulder. "This is my friend Rainbow Dash. She lived in Ponyville, too. We were investigating that hole in the sky I told you about when we got brought here."

"Okay, my turn to do introductions!" Haruna shoved her way past her friends, putting her hand on top of Negi's head. "This is Negi. Despite his shortness, he's actually our teacher. Those girls..." She pointed at Yue and Nodoka. "…you actually should recognize them already, but just for the sake of a proper introduction, this is Yue, and this is Nodoka."

"Hello." Yue bobbed her head in the pony's direction, starting to blush slightly as she realized that she had been unknowingly watched for the past few days.

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Dash." Nodoka bowed gracefully.

"Eh, just 'Rainbow Dash' is fine." The pony wagged a hoof in Nodoka's direction. "I really don't care about-"

"Anyway!" Haruna stepped in between them. "The pissed off redhead over by the door is Asuna. She's a bit abrasive, but she's...tolerable…when you get to know her." Asuna gave a sheepish wave before turning back to the door. "The friendly looking girl next to my roommates is Konoka. A little bit loopy, but you'll like her."

"Good to make your acquaintance!" Konoka knelt next to the edge of the pool and extended a hand. The pony stared at the appendage, unsure of exactly what she was supposed to do. After a moment she shrugged and held up her foreleg. She flinched as Konoka snatched it and gave it a strong shake.

"Uh...yeah...you too..." Rainbow Dash glanced at her hoof for a moment looking back towards Haruna.

"And last, but certainly not least, this is Chamo. If you couldn't tell, he's an ermine. And yes, he can talk."

"Hey." The ermine scurried up to the edge of the pool and scrambled onto Rainbow Dash's back. "How are you doing?"

"I'd warn you about him, but you don't really have any underwear for him to steal."

"Underwear?" Rainbow Dash cocked her head at the ermine as she climbed out of the pool, being careful not to tip him off.

"I'll explain later." Haruna tossed a towel over the pony's head, forcing the ermine to jump to the floor. "Get off of her."

"Okay, here's the current plan." Negi waved his arms as he tried to regain the attention of the students and ponies. "First thing tomorrow morning, we're all going to a meeting with the Headmaster to figure out what to do about the current situation. We'll try to find you some more comfortable living quarters."

"Good to hear." Rainbow Dash muttered as she shook the water off of her flanks. "I wanna sleep _in _a bed, not under one."

"You could spend the night in my room." Twilight offered. "There's space on the couch." She turned to Negi. "If you don't mind, of course."

"No, no, that's fine." He nodded. "It's understandable that you'd want to spend some time with your friend after everything you've been through. The good news is that hopefully by this time tomorrow, we'll have everything sorted out."

Naturally, it was at that precise moment that an unknown figure quite unwittingly took advantage of the fact that Asuna was distracted, and proceeded to bust through the bathroom door.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Roughly 19 hours later:<strong>

"Hey, what's that?" Yuuna pointed at the ceiling of the bath. "There's a hole up there!"

"That's odd..." Akira squinted at the suspiciously pony-shaped dent. "How on earth did that happen? It wasn't there yesterday..."

"What a weird shape..." Ako scratched her head. "I wonder what caused it."

"It's shaped kinda like a pony!" Makie giggled.

"What are you talking about!-?" Ako stared at the pink haired girl. "Why would there be a pony-shaped hole in the ceiling?"

"I don't know." Makie shrugged. "It kinda looks like it has wings..."

"So you're saying that a winged pony caused that...?" Yuuna rolled her eyes. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, it does look sort of like a winged pony..." Akira admitted.

"There's no such thing as a winged pony!" Yuuna stomped her foot.

"Then what do you think caused that?" Makie pointed at the indentation.

"I don't know." Yuuna shrugged before hopping into the water. "Probably Haruna."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Makie sighed. "I kinda wish that it _was_ a pony, though..."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Okay, finally got around to finishing this chapter up. Don't have too much to say about it, other than that the guy who busts in at the end is the first non-pony, non-Negima character in the story. Not saying who though.<p>

I'm also well aware that there is a ton of potential for various shenanigans involving all the characters, and I'm currently trying to think of a good way to include them here without bringing the actual plot to a halt. So for the moment, I'm settling for keeping the plot moving along with the humorous side stuff off to the side. I intend to get to it eventually, but I don't know when that will be. But rest assured, I have it in mind.

Thanks to No Limit for proofreading and providing the name of the trick that Rainbow Dash attempts (and fails).

I'm going to be on vacation next week, so I'm probably not going to get anything posted for at least two weeks. But I'm trying to get stuff done.

I feel like there was something else I was going to put here, but I can't remember what it was. Maybe I'll add it if I think of what it was.

Thanks for reading, and reviews are appreciated.


	4. Arrival

_ Omniscience in the sense of the god is a tricky subject. First and foremost, omniscience obviously only applies to the universe created by the god, and even then, it is not strictly omniscience. Say a person in the universe wears a blue shirt. The god may not know that the shirt is blue even if the other persons are aware of it. So if someone asks the god "What color is the shirt?", they do not know per se._

_ Yet, if the god responds with "The shirt is red", they would be correct. But that is more omnipotence than omniscience. In the case of the god, knowledge and truth are directly intertwined. Whatever the god knows about his universe is the truth of that universe, even though it may be contradictory. Reality is whatever the god says it is._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: Arrival<br>**

The mysterious figure's arrival in the bath was not synonymous with his arrival at Mahora. As a matter of fact, his arrival on the campus had occurred several minutes before he burst into the bathroom.

Chisame sat at her desk, trying not to fall asleep as she finished photoshopping the acne out of her latest set of photos. Normally she would probably have just left if for tomorrow, but Chiu-chan's website was long overdue for an update. Her fans had been promised an update before the end of the day, and they were damn well going to get one. She took a tired glance at the clock.

Okay, so the update would be half an hour late, but not for lack of trying. She hadn't even bothered to change out of the elaborate maid costume before sitting down at the computer to fix up the pictures, despite how uncomfortably warm it was getting.

"Aaannnd...done!"

She pounded her finger down on the Enter key and the pictures began to upload. It felt so good to get that whole mess out of the way. Now all that stood between Chisame and her bed was the arduous process of untying the two dozen or so knots in the corset on her costume. With a groan, she leaned back in the chair, feeling too tired to even bother going to bed. She would have fallen asleep in the chair if not for the fact that there was a rather loud disturbance behind her. Something like a wet thump followed by a squeaky rustling.

Her neck cracked as she worked up the motivation to look over her shoulder. Noting the cause of the noise, she turned her head back to a more comfortable position and closed her eyes. Then her brain finally got the signal from her eyes concerning the cause of the racket, causing Chisame to leap to her feet, spin around, and scream, all at the same time.

Flapping around on the couch was a person of unidentifiable age and gender. Whoever they were, they were wearing a black full-body wetsuit and scuba diving equipment, complete with flippers, tank, and mask. The person ceased their scrambling at the sound of Chisame's screaming. They slowly looked around the room, apparently taking stock of their surroundings.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room!-?" Chisame shouted.

The figure mumbled for a moment before beginning to fumble around with the scuba mask, moving the rebreather out of the way and revealing the bottom half of a stubble-covered face. The voice was unmistakably masculine, but simultaneously sounded rather childish.

"Sorry, I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. I-uh...didn't mean interrupt your little…uh..." he waggled his fingers as if it was supposed somehow inform her of what word he was attempting to come up with, "...thing. So if you could direct me in the general direction of Geneva..." He resumed his struggle to get off of the couch. There was a thunk as he rolled off the couch. He hopped back to his feet, and began to scramble across the floor, catching his flippered feet on anything and everything between himself and the door. "...I've got a- uh- rendezvous I have to make so if you could just tell me where the-"

"GET OUT!"

"Okay!" The man spun around and stumbled towards the door, the flippers hooking on the various wires that Chisame had scattered across the floor of her room. There was a crash as he dragged several speakers off of their shelves and onto the floor. He stopped. "Oh, sorry about that!" He unzipped a pocket on his wetsuit. "I can pay for that, I can pay for that! What kind of cash you want? I got Euros, and-"

"OUT!"

He turned and shuffled awkwardly out the door, dragging the speakers along behind him.

Chisame put a hand to her chest as she tried to slow her breathing to a rate that didn't qualify as hyperventilation. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel it through the corset. And now she was the most awake that she had been in the past week or so. Apparently the shock of a scuba diver seemingly materializing out of nowhere onto her sofa could clean the cobwebs out of her brain in a way that a case of Red Bull could only dream of.

Unfortunately for Chisame, her newfound lucidity of mind allowed her to begin working through the implications of what had just happened. Her door had definitely been locked. Ever since the Negi incident she had made sure of that. Yet the scuba diver had somehow appeared on her sofa. The window was closed and on the second story of the building, and there were no holes in the wall. So there was an unidentified man, and against all reason, it was vaguely plausible that he had teleportation powers. Chisame was rather loathe to admit that last point but the fact that there was a dude running around a dorm full of teenage girls was more important than calculating out the exact means of his arrival.

She rushed out of the room after him.

* * *

><p>About a minute later, the five girls and two ponies in the bath found themselves staring in confusion at the scuba diver who had burst through the doors. The equally confused intruder stared back for a moment before speaking.<p>

"Oh, wrong room. I'll uh- be going now."

He turned around and took a step towards the door, only to stop as Chisame's voice came through it.

"There's a man in the dorm! He just ran into the baths! Get back here, you pervert!"

"On second thought, this way." The flippers made a slapping noise as he goose-stepped across the bath towards the door on the far side of the room. He was halfway there when the main door burst open a second time. This time it was Chisame who stood in the doorway, still wearing her overly elaborate maid costume.

She froze for a moment as she noticed the presence of the two ponies. Neither one of them were the proper colors for ponies and one of them seemed to be floating. But her classmates were there, and the presence of the ponies didn't seem to faze them nearly as much as her own presence. In any case, her brain lacked the processing power to deal with the ponies, so for the moment she was just going to pretend that she didn't see them.

"That man snuck into my room! Stop him!"

Asuna rushed forward. Catching up was easy; the flippers had reduced to the man's running speed to roughly that of a two-year-old. Tackling him was similarly easy, for the same reason. Holding on to him, however, turned out to be impossibly difficult. Apparently the combination of the man's wetsuit and the layer of soapy water that Asuna was still coated in resulted in a level of slipperiness comparable to a slapstick-grade banana peel. The redhead face-planted onto the floor as the man wriggled out of her grip.

"Don't worry, I'll get him!" Haruna shouted. Unfortunately, the sound of her own voice drowned out the sound of Rainbow Dash yelling from the other end of the room.

"I got this!" The blue pony blasted towards the intruder.

Haruna charged towards the scuba diver. She may not have been quite as fit as Asuna, but catching up was still a piece of cake. "Tackle a burglar" was up there on her list of things to do before she died. This wasn't quite the same, but it was close enough that she could count it. With the loudest war cry she could muster, she made a final dive at her target.

"EYAAAAAAAEGHE-"

About halfway through her battle cry, the shout turned from one of intimidation to one of surprise. The intruder had tripped on his own fins and gone down, sliding across the soapy floor. His absence allowed Haruna to see that Rainbow Dash was barreling right towards her. Haruna's cry was stifled entirely as Rainbow Dash crashed straight into her midsection. She could feel her feet lifting off the ground. The world shifted into slow motion for a few seconds as the two of them flew backward, ultimately landing in one of the plants at the edge of the room.

Yue rolled her eyes as the scuba diver scrambled to his feet and continued his run for the door. She stuck out a foot as he ran past. He fell flat on his face. In a moment, Nodoka, Twilight, and Konoka were sitting on his back. He finally stopped floundering.

"Chisame, what's going on here?" Yue asked.

"I could ask you the same question!" Chisame snapped. "What are you doing in the bath at this time of night? And what's with the horses? Let me guess: Haruna ordered them off the internet and dyed their fur? And come to think of it, they're some weird looking horses. The proportions are a bit off..."

"You're the one who barged in here dressed as a maid, chasing a man in a scuba suit," Yue answered.

"That's not as weird that!" Chisame said, thrusting a finger at Twilight. "A purple pony? Seriously?" She put a hand on Twilight's head. "You guys even put a horn on it? What, did you superglue it or something?"

"I suppose we should introduce you," Nodoka said. "This is Twilight Sparkle."

"Twilight Sparkle?" Chisame's eye began to twitch. That was the best name they could come up with? Even Haruna could do better than that.

"Twilight, this is Chisame," Nodoka said to the pony. "She can be a little abrasive, but she's nice when you get to know her."

Chisame groaned. She had thought that Nodoka was more intelligent than this. Talking to a pony as if it were a person. Of all the ridiculous-

"Nice to meet you, Chisame."

"Huh?" She looked down to see the horse staring up at her.

"Are you one of Negi's students? I'd really hoped that I'd get to meet more of you."

The voice was unmistakably coming from the pony.

"Y-you can talk?" Chisame stuttered.

"Yeah, we can talk!" Chisame spun around to see another pony, a blue one. But the fact that it was blue was rather overshadowed by the fact that it had wings protruding from its body. And it was using said wings to hover above the bush that Haruna was clamoring out of. "I don't get why you guys are so surprised by that."

"F-flying pony?" She looked back to Twilight. "You can fly?"

"No, I don't have wings. I can do magic though."

"M-magic?"

"Sure, watch!" The pony closed her eyes. Chisame watched in horror as the horn began to glimmer. A purple aura began to radiate from it. There was a sudden flash, and Chisame felt that something had changed. She slowly lifted a hand to her face. It was unmistakable. She now had a mustache.

"Magic...pony...flying..."

Under the best of circumstances, Chisame's brain would have had difficulty coping with the amount of new information. Under the current circumstances, that capability was cut by a fair amount. Her fatigue was starting to catch up to her, and the adrenalin rush was rapidly wearing off. Unable to keep up, her brain went into shutdown mode and she keeled over in a dead faint.

"Okay, now what do we do?" Asuna asked.

"Go get Negi-sensei," Yue answered. "We have to do something about all of this."

* * *

><p>Konoemon sighed. He had hoped to be dealing with this disturbance during the day, after a good night's sleep, not at two in the morning. But Negi had informed him that yet another unidentified subject had arrived on campus, and even at his most lazy, the old man couldn't put off addressing the matter any further. He drained a final cup of coffee and stepped into his office.<p>

As per his instructions, all the involved parties were present. Negi was sitting on one of the chairs, waiting patiently. Haruna and Chisame sat behind him, waiting somewhat less patiently, still clothed in their respective bathrobe and maid outfit. Behind them, Evangeline paced back and forth even less patiently. The strange wet-suited man sat next to Negi, held in place by several high-quality binding spells. The two ponies were curled up on the couch against the wall.

"About time you showed up," Evangeline grumbled. "If you're going to drag me out of bed at this time of night, you could at least have the decency to show up on time. What the hell do you need me for, anyway?"

"Because you're one of the most experienced mages on campus. You've probably come across something relevant to our discussion in your hundreds of years of experience."

"Wait, she's magic too!-?" Chisame said. "What do you mean 'hundreds of years'!-?"

"She's an immoral vampire!" Haruna chipped in. "I think. I'm kinda new to the whole magic thing. But that's what Konoka told me!"

"A _what_?"

"Girls, please be quiet." Konoemon banged on the desk with his hand. "Yes, Evangeline is a vampire. She's very evil and has been terrorizing the world for several centuries. But at the moment she's mostly depowered and not too evil so don't worry about it. I'll leave it to your teacher to explain the whole magic thing in greater detail later on. At the moment we have more important things to take care of. Chisame, can you tell me exactly how this man…" he nodded towards the man in the wetsuit, "…appeared in your room."

"Not really," Chisame said with a shrug. "He just sort of appeared out of thin air."

"You didn't see him appear?"

"No."

Konoemon sighed once again.

"And here I thought we might have had a witness..."

"Witness to what?" Chisame asked.

"Well," Negi began, "a few days ago, the astronomy club noticed an anomaly in the sky. Shortly afterward, Twilight and Rainbow Dash appeared on campus. We questioned them and confirmed that they came from another world."

"They came from a town called Ponyville in a magical land called Equestria!" Haruna interrupted. "They had some weird hole in the sky too. So when they went to look at it, they showed up here!"

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Rainbow Dash has been living in my room for the past few days. I found her in a tree. So I snuck her back into the-"

She stopped as Konoemon cleared his throat. Even though the old man's eyes were completely hidden beneath his eyebrows, she could tell that he was glaring at her.

"Anyway..." Negi continued, "…Twilight has been looking through a few of the astronomy books she had with her. We believe it's possible that the hole in the sky may be a sort of portal between our world and theirs."

"Well, that's sort of true," Twilight said. "None of the books really say anything about being able to go between worlds like this, but one of them had a brief section on portals that let you teleport. The description of the portal is similar to the disturbance in the sky. They might be related, but I don't know."

"Then why don't I just fly up there and see if I can go through?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"We don't want to be too rash about this," Konoemon said, barely even fazed by the fact that he was addressing a flying pony. "And due to the arrival of mister scuba diver here, we can't assume that this portal between worlds thing will lead back to where you came from. I assume that he doesn't come from...Equestria, was it?"

"Yeah, I've never seen anybody like that," Rainbow Dash answered. "Ask Twilight about it. She's the one who's read like every book ever."

"I've never seen any record of humans in Equestria," Twilight said. "A similar sort of being shows up in a few ancient Equestrian legends, but I've never seen anything to indicate that they actually existed anywhere."

"I suppose we should go straight to the source then," Konoemon said. He turned to the scuba diver and snapped his fingers. The magical seal that had been keeping the man quiet vanished.

"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING, I SWEAR! I KNOW NOTHING! My girlfriend just dropped some car keys down a storm drain, so I was going to just go down and get them, so I figured that I'd put on my suit and-"

Konoemon snapped his fingers again, and the man was silent.

"Please just be quiet for a moment," Konoemon said, rubbing his forehead. "We're as confused about all of this as you are. We just want to ask you a few questions about where you came from, alright. We don't mean you any harm. Just try to calm down a bit, okay?"

The scuba diver nodded.

"Okay, let's start with something simple," Konoemon said. "What is your name?"

Once again, the old man snapped his fingers. The scuba diver cleared his throat and furrowed his eyebrows before answering with an exaggeratedly deep Scottish accent.

"My name is Steele. Samuel Steele."

"Who do you think you are, Sean Connery?" Chisame said as she stared incredulously.

"You are a terrible liar." Konoemon massaged the sides of his eggplant-shaped head. "Evangeline, would you mind?"

"Gladly." She stomped to the front of the room and faced the diver.

"Oh, hello," he said, dropping the accent in favor of a much more friendly tone. "What's a little girl like you doing up so late?"

"I am no little girl!"

As she spoke, the entire room seemed to become a little darker. Her entire body somehow looked as if it were wreathed in shadow. Her mouth was contorted into a toothy, fanged grin, and her eyes had gone black. Despite the fact that they were inside, her hair billowed as if she were standing in front of a fan.

"I am the Gospel of Darkness, the scourge of the entire magic world! I'm an evil freaking immortal vampire who can make children cry just by _existing_. And now I had to get out of my nice warm bed in the middle of the night and traipse all the way across this stupid campus because of you. I am not in the mood for your feeble attempts at giving us false information. Got that?"

The scuba diver, who had wilted under her gaze, nodded weakly.

"Good!" She jumped onto the diver, straddling him. She seized a handful of his hair and pulled his head back. "I'm only going to tell you this once: If you don't cut the crap and answer the man's questions, I'm going to..."

She leaned forward and whispered the rest of the threat directly into his ear. Whatever it was she said was apparently so forceful that it nearly caused his eyes to pop out of his head.

"Now then, I'm only going to ask you one more time. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"M-Morgan Grimes!" he stammered. "I'm a spy for the U.S. My team was trying to keep terrorists from doing something weird with the Large Hadron Collider and the next thing I knew I was here! I don't even know where here is! Just don't do that to me. I don't really like puppets. They creep me out."

"Thank you, Evangeline," Konoemon said as he took his seat at the desk. "You can get off of him now." Evangeline hopped off of Morgan, and resumed her pacing at the back of the room. "Now then, can you tell me where you're from?"

"My operation was based out of Burbank, California. I mean, my real job is being the manager at the Burbank Buy More, but sometimes I get called up for secret missions and stuff. You know, just in my spare time."

"I see..." Konoemon didn't really have any idea what Morgan was talking about. "It seems that you're actually from our world."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, unless you have talking ponies in your world, I think it's much more likely that you're from our world."

"Talking ponies?"

Konoemon pointed towards the back of the room, where Twilight and Rainbow Dash were resting on the couch. Morgan managed to twist his neck far enough around to see them each waving a foreleg at him.

"Oh, them. Right." He turned back to Konoemon, figuring that it would be best for his sanity to think about the ponies later. "So, uh...where am I? Is this like some embassy or something? Because I really need to get going. Gotta meet up with the rest of my team in Geneva."

"You're in Japan."

"Japan. Wow. That's uh- I've never been to Japan before, so that's cool, I guess." Morgan nodded his head as he spoke, trying to sound cool and composed. "Where in Japan, exactly?"

"Mahora Academy."

"And that is...where, exactly?"

"You've never heard of Mahora Academy?" Chisame couldn't keep herself quiet any longer. "It's the largest boarding school in Japan! It might even be the largest boarding school in the world? The freaking school festival gets more visitors than the Olympics! How can a freaking secret agent have never even heard of it!-?"

"More than the Olympics? Really?" Morgan asked, totally ignoring the actual question that Chisame had intended to ask. "That's impressive. I'll have to Google that festival when I get home."

"Make sure you look up the cosplay contest!" Haruna said. The expression on her face made it evident that she considered the whole ordeal more entertaining than anything else. "If you make it to this year's, make sure you stop by the manga booths. I've got a bunch of stuff I'm going to be selling."

"Oh, like he'd be interested in any of the smut you write," Chisame grumbled. Unlike Haruna, she was totally un-entertained by the events unfolding around her. More than anything, she just wanted to be curled up in her bed.

"Hey, I make an effort to appeal to all sorts of audiences," Haruna retorted. "My comics include something for everyone."

"I'll...keep that in mind..." Morgan mumbled. He turned back to Konoemon. The old, eggplant-headed man seemed to be the only person in the room who wasn't either crazy or utterly terrifying. "So, can I go now, or what? I sort of need to be on my way."

"I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen," Konoemon answered. "It's not that you seem particularly dangerous, but I can't really have you running around campus until we figure out what's going on."

"So what, I'm like your prisoner now?"

"No, no, nothing like that. We're just going to have to keep track of you until we confirm that you aren't psychotic or anything like that." Konoemon turned to Negi, "Would you be so kind as to inform Mana that we have a job for her? Normally I wouldn't bother her for something like this, but I can write off her pay as a business expense."

"Uh, can I at least borrow a phone or something?" Morgan asked. "I really should get in touch with my team. It's been like an hour or so since I checked in last, and well...one of them is going to get real worried about me, and one of them is probably going to kill me for not letting them know what's going on. And you all seem like such nice people, so I'd really kinda hate for them to go and, how should I say this, take extreme measures to ensure my- oh crap."

The eyes of everyone in the room (except Konoemon, who was facing the wrong direction) widened as they began to register the presence of two roughly-human shaped shadows that were rapidly descending towards the window. The Konoemon's eyes widened as the two figures burst through the window, showering him with glass as they landed on either side of him.

"See?" Morgan said. "This is exactly what I was talking about..."

* * *

><p>"How about this one?" Nodoka held up a flash card with a series of foreign characters on it.<p>

"Hmmmm..." Yue furrowed her eyebrows as she tried to remember what the word meant. "If I remember correctly, it's...'to be engaged in warfare? '"

"No." Nodoka flipped the card around. "'To do, to make'." She stuffed the card back into the stack. "Why do you want to learn this so badly anyway? Wouldn't Latin be a more logical starting point? According to Negi, only the most high-level spells are in Greek, after all."

"Latin may have superseded Greek as the primary language of magic, but the foundations of modern magic were first laid down in Greek," Yue answered. "The reason the ancient spells are more powerful is that they aren't as far removed from their original forms. As such, it is prudent to be knowledgeable about the language."

"Even though you're barely able to do any Latin incantations? Shouldn't you get the easier ones out of the way before you try to learn the advanced material?"

"I'm sure that our training sessions with Evangeline will cover that." Yue took the stack of cards from Nodoka and began to shuffle it. "I'm merely preparing myself for when we get to the more difficult incantations. If I can at least grasp the basic grammar and vocabulary, it will be easier later on."

"That's true, I guess," Nodoka said. "But still, do we have to do this now? You should probably go to bed."

"You know as well as I do that neither one of us would be able to sleep," Yue said. It was an accurate assessment; both girls were stuck in that awkward position where they were utterly exhausted, yet too cognizant to have any hope of actually resting.

"Are you worried about Haruna too?" Nodoka asked. Despite that both she and Yue had been let in on the secret under seemingly more dangerous circumstances, she couldn't help but feel apprehension about the situation. The fact that Haruna had basically been hauled away with that weird scuba diver person didn't help much. If she actually had any idea what was going on, it would be tolerable. But she had no idea what her friend was experiencing, and that was cause for worry.

"A little, I suppose." Yue was more than a little worried, but letting that show would only make Nodoka more anxious. "Although I'm more worried about what's going to happen to everyone else now that Haruna is aware that magic exists."

"You're probably right," she said. Thinking of how Haruna would react to whatever it was Negi would tell her made her smile. "She'll be fine."

"As long as Chisame doesn't go mad from the revelation and start stabbing people. I don't think she'll react well."

"So you think it'll be okay?"

"Yes. Negi-sensei has let so many people in on his secret by now that I'm sure he knows how to deal with it.

"I guess you're right. It wasn't like that strange man was all that threatening. And Negi said that Evangeline was going to be there, anyway." Nodoka glanced at the clock that sat on her dresser. 3:02. "We really should go to bed. Negi did say that he didn't know how long it would be before they got back. And we have class tomorrow."

"Fine, fine. Let me just go over the definite article chart one more time and then I'll go to bed."

Nodoka sighed as she looked out the window. She could just make out the outline of the middle school building in the distance. Something was slightly off; the gentle glow of the World Tree didn't seem as bright as it usually was. Still, after the talking ponies and the mysterious scuba diver, it barely seemed abnormal. In fact, the entire night seemed unusually mundane.

That spatial anomaly in the sky was still there, as far as she knew, but she was hardly familiar enough with astronomy to tell that anything was wrong. Everything looked so _normal_; it was almost impossible to believe that there were magic ponies on campus.

Then again, her teacher was a mage, a talking ermine lived in a room down the hall, and her immediate circle of acquaintances included a vampire, a robot, and two half-demons. She was even helping her roommate study her incantations. Maybe things _were_ weird, and she was just so used to it all that she didn't recognize it. She could feel her eyelids beginning to droop. She was too tired to think about this kind of thing. She just needed to get to get some sleep. When she got up in the morning, everything would make more sense.

* * *

><p>Elsewhere on campus, a student hurried furtively along one of the many paths between the dorms and the University buildings. There were half a dozen or so paths that would get her to her destination quicker than the one she was currently on, but she couldn't risk those. Getting caught outside of the dorm after curfew wasn't an extremely serious offense, but there was no reason to deal with that issue if she didn't have to. The last thing she wanted to do was arouse suspicion, and sneaking into one of the laboratory buildings after hours would raise a few questions.<p>

She could, of course, use the Mahora tunnel system like she normally did when she needed to get across campus in a hurry, but in this particular circumstance that option yielded its own set of problems. Security in the tunnels was typically non-existent, since roughly half the campus didn't even realize they were there, and of the remaining half, most of them didn't have any inclination to go down there.

Tonight was different. Her sources had told her that security around campus had inexplicably been beefed up recently. Chances are that it was related to that "astronomical anomaly" that the astronomy club had picked up. She couldn't be sure though. The most recent information had indicated a second boost in security only an hour or so ago. Even she couldn't figure out whether that meant that they were actually watching the tunnels. In any case, getting caught down there would cause far more problems than just taking an extra ten minutes to get to where she was going.

Going down the alleys wasn't a big deal, though. She didn't like to brag (not too much anyway), but on the occasions when she did, she was perfectly capable of putting her money where her mouth was. Anything powerful enough to actually give her trouble would have tripped the school barrier.

At least getting into the building wouldn't be a problem. She knew most of the security codes, at least for the buildings that it was worth getting into. In this case, it was the University science building, specifically the labs. At the moment there was nothing she really needed from the lab itself, but she still had her reasons. She punched in the second security code and the lab door slid open.

"What is it, Hakase?" Chao grumbled as she lowered her hood. "I'm going to assume that it's somehow related to our plan, as there really isn't anything else that would merit calling me at this time of night, so the only question is exactly what aspect of the plan is involved in this emergency. So what is it?"

"Oh, Chao! Good! You made it!" Hakase stumbled out of one of the closets where she had set up her makeshift bed. "There's been a major complication! A major anomaly has occurred in the magical energy surrounding the-"

"This isn't about that thing the astronomy club noticed, is it?" Chao asked. She hoped it wasn't, partly because it didn't actually affect the plan anyway, but mostly because it was one of the few variables that she had no way of predicting. That fact scared her a little. Not that she let it show. "I already heard about that. As it is now, it should have no impact on our plans."

"No, no, that's not the problem," Hakase said. She paused for a moment as she tried to think of exactly how to break the bad news to her associate. Then she remembered that she really had no concept of tact. It was just a social construct anyway. "There's been a major fluctuation in the energy of the World Tree."

"What?"

Hakase had never really noted how disturbing it was when Chao went pale. It took a lot to get the blood to drain out of her face. Come to think of it, she had never actually seen her experience such distress. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Well, I awoke due to a pressing need to relieve myself, and on the way back from the lavatory, I noted a discrepancy in the readings," Hakase said. She pointed to one of the many monitors that lined the back wall of the room. The top half of the screen was taken up by a slowly-moving line graph. Near the end of the graph, the line took a sharp dive.

"A 90% drop!-?" There was so much skepticism in Chao's voice that it was obvious she couldn't believe what she was saying. "There is no way that's right. There must be a problem with the sensors."

"I already examined all the information coming in from the sensors, both primary and secondary. All of it is internally consistent, so unless every sensor malfunctioned simultaneously, it appears that the incoming information is accurate. Since the initial drop in energy, the levels appear to have stabilized."

"Is the level constant?"

"No, it appears to be increasing at a rate comparable to that of 29 days ago. My calculations indicate that at the current rate of magical accumulation, the World Tree's mana level will peak roughly a month later our initial calculations indicated."

"So what you're telling me is that a large amount of magical energy simply vanished without affecting the rate of accretion? Where on earth did all of that energy go?"

Chao scratched her head. It was the first time in a long while that something had puzzled her. She was almost feeling worried. Or at least she was now conscious of the feeling. There was always that gnawing sort of doubt in the back of mind that she didn't have everything lined up quite as nicely as she thought she did, but she had buried that feeling under layers of preparation and stubbornness. Now it was threatening to come back to the surface?

"Perhaps the tree dissipated the energy naturally."

"No. That's never happened. Not in the entire recorded history of the World Tree." She lowered her voice to a growl. "Not even in the history from my time. Someone or something drained that energy."

She took a deep breath. It was fairly obvious that her life was going to get even more chaotic than it had been for the past two years. Most of the plan was already in ruins, and it was going to take all the effort she could muster to salvage what was left of it. Not to mention that there was now some completely new variable to contend with; that amount of energy didn't just disappear. Someone was using it for something, and she had no idea who it was.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>I apologize for the relative lack of ponies in this chapter. There will be more of them in the next chapter.<p>

For those of you who don't recognize Morgan Grimes, he's one of the characters on the tv show **Chuck_. _**It's a surprisingly entertaining take take on spy movies and stuff like that, and definitely worth watching.

In other news, this chapter has a few important setups for stuff that's going to happen later. Not going to say what they are, because then they won't be as awesome when they pay off. There's also a massive red herring in there someplace, but I'm not saying what because that would defeat the whole purpose of having it in here. So now you can be paranoid.

Not sure when the next chapter will be out. (Hooray for having two papers due within a week of each other). Especially because I want to get another _Nerima_ chapter done before I go back to work on this. But I will update it at some point.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Reviews would be awesome.


	5. Visitors, Prisoners, and Mustaches

_ Even more thorny is the issue of free will. A god who creates a universe will almost inevitably create (or in some cases, borrow) beings who populate it. While it cannot be denied that the god creates the starting personalities of the beings, there is quite a bit of debate concerning the development. The primary argument is whether the god determines the directions in which the beings develop, or whether the beings are left to go their own way._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5: Visitors, Prisoners, and Mustaches<strong>

"Who the heck are you people?" Evangeline said, glaring at the new set of intruders with annoyance as they leveled guns in the vague direction of the group.

"We could ask you people the same question," one of the figures barked in a gruff voice. Fittingly enough, he had a jaw so square that he wouldn't have been out of place in a 90's superhero cartoon. "Not to mention why you're holding a member of our team prisoner."

"We're holding him prisoner because we found him sneaking around in the girls' dorm!" Konoemon answered.

"Seriously, Morgan?" The other figure lowered his gun slightly. He was rather nondescript; brown hair, slightly nerdy looking, that was about it. "What the heck were you doing in a girls' dorm?"

"I don't know. I just sort of appeared there," Morgan answered. "I mean, what about you guys? We aren't in Switzerland anymore, in case you haven't noticed."

"Yeah, we noticed," the gruff one muttered. He remained mostly still while his eyes darted around the room. "What's going on in here anyway? A bunch of kids and an old man? And…small, odd-colored horses? Why are they holding you prisoner?"

"I have no idea, okay? They don't know how I got here either, so they just wanted to...keep tabs on me until they figured out what's going on."

"Well, you're coming with us, buddy," the nondescript one said. He turned to the rest of the room. "Uh, we're just going to take our friend; we've got some stuff to do..."

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," Evangeline said as she took a dramatic step between Morgan and his two supposed rescuers. "He's staying right where he is."

The square-jawed man rolled his eyes, and turned to the other man.

"Chuck, could you please move the kid out of the way? I'm sure you wouldn't want her to get hurt."

"Uh, sure." He leaned towards Evangeline. "Um, we really need to get him out of here, and we're both trained special agents; and we really, really don't want any collateral damage. Especially not kids. So if you could just, you know, let us take him..."

"Not happening," Evangeline said. She cracked her knuckles and struck a suitable martial arts pose. She narrowed her eyes at Chuck. "If you want your friend you go through me."

The room went silent for a moment as he returned her stare. Suddenly, his entire body twitched, and his eyes briefly rolled back as his head spasmed. Then with a shout, he struck his own pose. Evangeline just smiled.

"So you know Aikijutsu too, huh? This is going to be more fun than I thought."

A dark smile flashed across her face as she lunged forward.

"What the heck is going on here?" Chisame muttered to herself. Despite looking about as far from being a secret agent as was really possible, this Chuck guy was apparently quite capable in hand to hand combat. And even more bizarrely, Evangeline was matching his every move. Apparently it wasn't enough for her to be an immortal vampire mage; she had to be a kung fu master while she was at it.

"Dibs on the big guy!"

Chisame turned around just in time to see Rainbow Dash barreling towards the square-jawed man, leaving a multicolored contrail in her wake. The man leveled his gun at the flying pony and squeezed the trigger. Rather than the expected loud bang, it released a quiet pop. Rainbow Dash spun out of the way; despite never having seen any type of gun, it was fairly obvious that he wasn't pointing at her for fun, and being in front of it when it did whatever it did was probably bad. Unfortunately enough, Chisame was directly behind where the pony had been a moment earlier.

"Huh?" Chisame looked down at her shoulder to see a small tranquilizer dart sticking out of it. "Oh damn it," she mumbled, before tipping out of her chair and onto the floor with a splat.

"Nice try!" the pony shouted as she rushed towards her target. He ducked out of the way at the last second as Rainbow Dash shot past him, knocking the gun out of his hand before barreling through the one remaining intact section of the window.

"What the hell was that?" He turned to look out the window, but Rainbow Dash was already out of view.

"Flying rainbow pony," Morgan answered with a shrug.

"A _what_?" The square jawed man glared at Morgan, as if daring him to repeat himself.

"Listen Casey, I just call them as I see them, okay?" Morgan said. Suddenly his eyes widened. "It's coming around again!"

Casey spun around just in time for Rainbow Dash to blast back through the window, ramming him in the torso. He found himself lifted off his feet for a few seconds as the pegasus carried him across the office. There was an enormous crash as both of them crashed into the wall at the back of the room, dropping onto the couch next to Twilight, who scrambled out of the way.

Rainbow Dash flailed helplessly as she tried to get airborne, but Casey had his arms locked around her. For the moment, her wings were useless. She flailed her limbs as she tried to free herself.

"Twilight! Do something!"

"What should I do!-?" Twilight babbled.

"I don't care! Just do something!"

"Oh-okay!" She closed her eyes and pointed her horn at the scuffle. She took a deep breath as she gathered magical energy. There was a flash of light from the tip of her horn, and the fight froze. Casey was keeping his grip on Rainbow Dash, but neither of them continued to struggle. Both of them were too busy trying to identify what it was that had just happened to their faces. In particular, they were both rather surprised by the fact that they had spontaneously grown mustaches. Casey slowly raised a hand to his face, gingerly touching the bushy mass of black hair that had sprouted on his upper lip.

**CLONK.**

Casey toppled over as Rainbow Dash delivered a solid foreleg to his jaw. She rolled awkwardly off the couch, stretching her wings to make sure none of the pinions had been pulled out.

"Mustaches? Really, Twilight?"

Twilight bit her lip, fighting the urge to laugh at the psychedelic Fu Manchu protruding from her friend's muzzle.

"H-hey! Watch it, Chuck!"

Both ponies turned to the front of the room at the sound of Morgan's yelling. Somehow, in the course of Evangeline and Chuck's kung fu battle, they had ended up on opposite sides of the unfortunate prisoner; and both were throwing a flurry of punches and kicks dangerously close to his head.

"If you're going to do that, could you at least do it somewhere else? Whoa!" He tilted his head out of the way as one of the blows took out the corner of the chair's back. "You see that? You guys could have taken my head off!"

"Morgan, I'm kinda busy!" Chuck gasped. He took a step back, causing a lull in the fight. Then with a shout, he hooked his foot on the arm rest and thrust the chair back. The chair, with Morgan still magically bound to it, landed flat on its back, inches from Chisame's head. Chuck resumed his stance as he faced Evangeline. "How are you this good? You're too young to be this good!"

"Oh, right. You missed that part of the conversation," Evangeline said, breathing more heavily than she had in quite a while. "Let's just say I'm older than I look."

There was a flurry of blows as she leaped at him. They spun in the air for a moment. Then there was a thud as Chuck landed facedown on the floor, his limbs in a tangled knot behind him. Eva was somehow holding his arms and legs in place with only two fingers.

"That was awesome!" Haruna shouted. "I have no idea how that was even possible, but it was freaking sweet!"

"What happened!-?" Morgan shouted, craning his neck in a vain attempt to see what had caused the noise. "What's going on? Chuck?"

"Your friend is indisposed," Evangeline answered. She smirked as she bent over to talk to Chuck. "You're pretty good, but you need to work on your counters."

"What exactly did you do?" he gasped. "I know 47 different martial arts and I've never seen that before."

"When you've been doing this as long as I have, you learn how to improvise," Evangeline said, patting him on the head with her free hand. She turned back to Konoemon, who was surveying the damage that the unexpected intrusion had caused. "What should we do with these guys?"

"Take them all to Mana and have her put them in the holding cells until we get everything figured out," he said with a sigh. "Negi, take Chisame to the health center and make sure that she's alright. The rest of you can go back to the dorms. However, none of you are permitted to tell anyone about this." He focused a beady eye on Haruna. "Especially you. If you aren't sure about who's already in on it, ask Negi. He's the only one who can keep everybody straight. Normally I'd give you my speech about why it's important not to spread the knowledge of magic, but for now I'll just leave it at this: If you blow Negi's cover, I'll turn you over to Nitta-sensei. Understood?"

He received a roomful of nodded responses.

"Good. Now get out of here." He flapped his arms at everyone as if he were shooing away an unwanted cat. "I want to get this mess cleaned up, and I can't bring in the maintenance crew to fix the windows until you're all out of here."

He put a hand on his forehead as he watched everyone file out of the room, rambling quietly yet excitedly about everything that had just happened. A deep sigh escaped him as he surveyed the room, which looked not unlike the aftermath of a tornado. Hopefully his insurance would cover it.

* * *

><p>"Did you see me!-? I totally kicked his butt! Pow!" Rainbow Dash whipped one of her hooves through the air. "Boom! Knocked him right out!"<p>

"Shhh!" Twilight whispered, poking Rainbow Dash in the ribs to quiet her down. "You heard Konay...Konak...Kog...that old guy! We have to make sure that nobody sees us."

"Well, duh, that's why we're wearing these, isn't it?" Rainbow Dash held up a hoof, shaking the black cloak that was draped around her.

"Somehow, I don't think that these really make us any less conspicuous..." Twilight muttered, pawing at her own cloak, which was uncomfortably long. "I mean, humans walk on two legs, so we still stick out."

"Then why did he give us these things?"

"I don't know, alright? Just be quiet until we get into my room, okay?" Twilight said as she rapped her hoof on Asuna's door, "Are you sure you don't want to go back to your room?"

"Nah, I've been pretty much living under Haruna's bed and I was getting kinda cramped under there. I gotta keep my wings in good sha-OW."

Rainbow Dash did a backward somersault as the door opened surprisingly fast, hitting her right in the head. Konoka's head popped out of the doorway.

"Oh, hey Twilight! My grandpa finished giving his speech?"

"He never really got to that," Twilight answered. "There were some complications. I'll tell you about it once we get in the room."

"Really? Come on in, then." She gasped as she finally noticed Rainbow Dash crumpled against the far wall of the hallway, "Oh! I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine..." Rainbow Dash grumbled as she picked herself up and ambled into the room. "Wow, this is a lot bigger than Haruna's room?"

"Yeah, being the principal's granddaughter has its perks!" Konoka said as she shut the door behind the ponies, "You want some ice for your head?"

"Nah, it's fine." Rainbow Dash answered as she fought her way out of the cloak. It obviously wasn't designed with a pony in mind.

"She rams into stuff with her head all the time," Twilight said, giggling as she watched Rainbow Dash's losing fight with the cloak. "So that old man is your grandfather?"

"Yeah, he can be a bit airheaded, but he's been principal for years and the school hasn't collapsed completely yet, so he must be doing something right. So what were those complications you mentioned?"

"Well, you know that person we caught in the bath? Two of his friends crashed through the windows to try to rescue him."

"I beat one of 'em up!" Rainbow Dash declared, her voice muffled by the cloak, which was now wrapped around her head. "I rammed right into him and took him OUT!"

"Mmmnh?" A discontented rumble came from the bunk as Asuna poked her head out from under the covers. "Who's making all the noise? Oh." She squinted against the brightness of the room, looking at the ponies, "You're that other pony that Haruna was hiding."

"That's me! Rainbow Dash. Fastest pegasus in Equestria!"

"Yeah, that's nice..." Asuna said with a yawn. "I'd love to talk, but I kinda have to get up in..." She glanced at the clock. "About two hours. So you guys can fill me in on it tomorrow." She disappeared back under her blankets.

"Don't mind her. She has to go to work tomorrow," Konoka said as she took a seat. "So tell me about the meeting. You said that guy's friends came in through the window?"

"Yes, they said that they were there to rescue him," Twilight answered. "One of them got in a fight with...uh...I'm not sure who it was. She was really short and had long yellow hair."

"Was she wearing a really frilly nightgown?"

"Yes, now that you mention it."

"Oh, that was Evangeline. She's actually a few hundred years old, although she looks like she's just a kid. Some sort of weird vampire magic thing."

"She was awesome!" Rainbow Dash tried to strike the same pose that Evangeline had used, but got tangled in the cloak and toppled over with a crash.

"Anyway..." Twilight rolled her eyes at Rainbow Dash's antics. "Evangeline defeated one of them."

"I took out the other one!" Rainbow Dash hopped back to her hooves, finally free of the cloak. "He grabbed my wings, but Twilight distracted him with her magic and I took him out!"

"Oh, you used your magic on him?"

"Yeah…sort of..." Twilight mumbled.

"She made him grow a mustache!" Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a hefty pat on the back.

"Oh, is that why you have a...uh..." Konoka wiggled her finger in the general direction of Rainbow Dash's nose.

"Huh?" The pegasus crossed her eyes as she tried to look at the mustache on her own face, which she had neglected to remove. "Oh, that. You have anything I can use to get rid of it? It's sort of...attached."

"I'll get you some scissors," Konoka said as she patted Rainbow on the head. "Why don't you two catch up? If you've been living in Haruna's room, I'm sure you have some good stories for Twilight."

"Yeah! She had these 'movie' things that she let me watch while she was gone! Like there was this one with this human that was actually made out of metal! And from the future! And there was this other human, who was normal, but he was from the future too! And he tried to blow up the metal human, although nobody else knew that the other human was made of metal..."

Asuna rolled over and buried her head under her pillow as her roommate and the ponies continued rambling, oblivious to her efforts at going to sleep.

* * *

><p>"So, uh, anybody got any plans for getting us out of this?" Morgan wiggled a bit in his chair. He was still magically tied bound to it, although at least this time he had someone to talk to. Chuck and Casey sat on either side of him, similarly stuck to the chairs via magic. "Preferably something that doesn't involve breaking my thumbs to escape. Not that it would really do much good, cause it's magic, but still-"<p>

"I think we have some more pressing issues to tend to at the moment, Morgan," Chuck answered. "Like, you know, how on earth we ended up in Japan. Or why the people who captured us actually know how to do magic. Or how a talking purple unicorn somehow made Casey spontaneously grow a mustache."

"Well, the stuff about magic and the purple unicorn...I have no idea." Morgan tried to shrug, but was prevented by the magical bonds. He settled for nodding his head a little before continuing. "Maybe we got drugged or something and that was just a hallucination."

"Then how exactly are we stuck to the chairs?"

"I don't know! Some sort of new military technology, probably. Like carbon microfibers or nanobots or something."

"Okay, okay. I can buy that." Chuck nodded. He didn't really buy Morgan's explanation, but it was easily more plausible than the alternative. "But how exactly do you explain the fact that Casey still has a mustache?"

"He does?" Morgan craned his neck forward, trying to get a look. Failing that, he slowly began scooting the chair forward, a tenth-of-a-millimeter at a time. A painfully loud screeching filled the air.

"Morgan..." Chuck vainly tried to shield his ears from the onslaught by pressing his ear against his shoulder. "Morgan! Will you stop that!-?"

"Just a second, I can almost see it!" Morgan continued to drag himself across the floor. "Oh, wow." He stopped dead as he finally caught a glimpse of Casey's face. "Oh, nice. You have a serious Tom Selleck thing going on there. You should keep that! It looks good on you. Goes well with your chin."

Casey just grunted, still fighting against the headache that had been brought on by the hoof to the face. The grunt was accompanied by a rather toxic glare. It wasn't quite the worst look that Casey had ever given Morgan, but it was definitely near the top of the list. Morgan responded by slowly and noisily scooting his chair back to its original position, out of Casey's line of sight. He sat quietly for a moment, trying to ignore the feeling of anger that Casey was projecting in his direction.

"So..." Morgan bobbed his head, trying to break the heavy silence. "...Japan, huh? Wonder how that happened. I mean, we're disarming that timer thing, next thing I know, Boom! I'm on some girl's couch in Japan. It's weird, man-"

He clamped his mouth shut as the door swung open. Mana strode into the room, the half dozen or so guns she had strapped to her body rattling ominously. Setsuna followed behind her, hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Morgan swallowed hard as he noted the number of weapons and immediately switched into self preservation mode.

"Hello, ladies. How can we make your visit more pleasant?"

"Morgan, what are you doing!-?" Chuck shot an incredulous glance in Morgan's direction.

"What? I- ohhhhh..." Morgan's face lit up with realization. "Okay, that came out wrong. Uh...what brings you down here?"

"We just came down here to see what that racket was," Mana answered, noting that Morgan's chair was slightly crooked, and that the aforementioned racket had sounded not unlike that unpleasant noise of dragging them into the room in the first place.

"What racket? I didn't notice any racket." Morgan began to babble. Chuck just shook his head. "No racket in here. It's been totally quiet."

"You aren't fooling anyone," Mana said as she shoved Morgan's chair back into position. "Setsuna, can you use a spell tag to bind the chairs to the floor?"

"Sure, I'll go get the ofuda." As she turned to walk out of the room, an incredibly low-quality version of some sort of pop song began to ring out from her pocket. She drew her cell phone out of her pocket and held it up to her ear.

"Oh, crap. It's probably that old man!" Morgan whispered in Chuck's general direction. "He's telling her to kill us! She's going to cut off our heads! I mean, I guess if I have to go, getting beheaded by a samurai girl is a pretty cool way, but still."

Mana simply rolled her eyes at Morgan's distress and turned back to her companion.

"It's Konoka, isn't it?"

Setsuna nodded.

"Take the call. I'll take care of these guys." She turned back to the prisoners. "I'll be right back. You guys behave, okay?"

Both of the girls strode out of the room, slamming the door behind them.

* * *

><p>Chisame squinted at her computer screen. The tranquilizer dart had worn off with surprising speed. Negi had claimed that some form of invigoration magic was responsible, but that was just absurd. Because magic obviously didn't exist. The pain in her shoulder was a bit tougher to explain. Maybe she had been stung by a bee, but she was allergic and therefore had hallucinated that whole thing with the guy in the scuba suit, and the ponies, and secret agents, and Evangeline being a martial artist. And obviously Negi had just taken to the infirmary where they had given her some sort of medication that was currently making her unnecessarily alert despite the fact that she was utterly exhausted.<p>

At the moment she was attempting to write out a blog post. Giving an account of her sudden allergic reaction and resultant bizarre hallucinations would certainly keep her audience interested. And as a bonus, it would give her an excuse to procrastinate on shooting the next set of pictures. The only problem was that she was having more than a little bit of trouble taking whatever was in her head and forming it into something coherent for her blog. She really should have stuck with her first attempt. While the grammar was atrocious and it was rather rambling, the basic idea was sort of clear. But each subsequent attempt looked more and more as if it had been written by a strung out hobo. The most recent draft was not unlike the online equivalent of the _Codex__Seraphinianus._

Maybe the best course of action would be to forget the blog for the moment and make another attempt at getting some rest. Even if she couldn't actually _sleep_, lying there and not doing anything was probably more productive than expending so much energy writing something looked like alphabet soup. Coherent thought could wait until tomorrow morning. Nobody would read what she posted at this hour anyway. It would take a while, but eventually she would fall asleep; and when she woke up, everything would make sense, and she would have a nice laugh at her bizarre dreams. She curled up in her bed, and was finally starting to nod off when she was shocked into wakefulness by a surprisingly solid knock on the door.

She grumbled something about Negi being too nice for his own good. He was obviously coming by to check on her. There was certainly no one else who would bother to come to her room at...she looked at the clock...four in the morning. She rubbed her eyes and tried to make herself look as not-angry as she could manage before she let him in. As much as she wanted to be asleep, he wasn't going to go away until he knew she was alright.

The door swung open, and Chisame found herself staring at two overly colorful ponies with proportions that didn't quite match what little knowledge Chisame had about what ponies were supposed to look like. Of course, the unusual body structure was inconsequential next to the fact that one pony had a horn protruding from her forehead, and the other had wings folded across her back. And the wings and horn were rather unimportant compared to the fact that the purple one was talking.

"Hello! We never really got the chance to introduce ourselves, and since we were keeping Asuna up, we figured we could check up on you. You looked pretty out of it after you got hit by that thing."

Chisame stared blankly for a few minutes. She really, really wanted to be angry, to be absolutely livid and rage against the universe itself and whatever god designed it for so much as even allowing this situation to occur. Ponies weren't supposed to be those colors, they weren't supposed to be mythical creatures, and they weren't supposed to talk. The very fact that they existed was bad enough, but the fact that they were talking to her was like a slap in the face. In theory, she could learn to coexist in the same universe as something that wasn't supposed to be there, but now they were actively inserting themselves into her life. It was adding insult to injury. The only thing keeping her temper in check was that between the tranquilizer and her exhaustion, she was physically incapable of anger.

"So can we come in?" The purple pony continued, "We're supposed to try to keep out of sight."

"Sure..." Chisame waved the ponies through the doorway. She couldn't fight it; she didn't have the strength. If her life was going to get thrown into a blender of magic ponies, she might as well try to come to terms with it now, while she was too numb to really suffer too much. "You can sit...or lie down, or whatever it is you do...over...there..." She waved her hand towards the couch, as she couldn't get the word to come out of her mouth.

"Thank you!" Twilight clamored onto the sofa and curled herself up on the end of it. "Everything in the bath happened so quickly that I don't think I ever got your name. I'm Twilight Sparkle, and this is Rainbow Dash."

"Twilight...Sparkle?" Chisame repeated, feeling a dull realization that if not for her exhaustion, she would have burst out laughing. Although she had to admit that the ponies were quite adorable, even if their very existence made absolutely no sense. She reluctantly extended a hand to the purple pony. "I'm Chisame. Chisame Hasegawa."

"Um…it's nice to meet you."

Chisame stood still as Twilight examined her outstretched hand.

"You're supposed to shake it," Rainbow Dash said, noting Twilight's confusion. "I don't understand it either. Must be a human thing."

"So you're Rainbow Dash?" Chisame asked. It was fairly obvious due to the multicolored mane that the blue pony was in fact Rainbow Dash, but she couldn't really think of anything else to say.

"That's me!" The pony's wings sprang out as far as they would go, which despite not being very far managed to knock several objects off of the nearby desk. "Best flyer in Equestria!"

"...Really." Chisame tried her best to sound interested. "Equestria, huh? Is that where you're from?

"Yes, we're both from Equestria. I'm originally from Canterlot. Rainbow Dash is from Cloudsdale, but we both ended up living in Ponyville."

"Ponyville. That's…uh…I have no idea where that is."

"That's true; I guess you wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about," Twilight said, in a more chipper manner than anyone, human or pony had a right to be at four in the morning. "Anyway, how are you feeling? You just sort of keeled over when you got hit with that...thing."

"It's called a gun, Twilight. You point it at stuff to attack it or something. It was in those movies that Haruna showed me," Rainbow Dash said, in a voice that made it evident that she was only half paying attention. "Hey, Chisame, what's this thing?"

The bespectacled girl's mind snapped back into partial wakefulness as she realized that the pegasus was poking at her computer.

"Don't touch that!" She tried to rush forward and shove the pony away, but she tripped over her discarded maid costume. After everything that had happened, actually putting away her clothes hadn't been high on the priority list. Mentally cursing her laziness, she scrambled to her feet to see that Rainbow Dash had somehow, despite having never so much as seen a computer before, managed to activate the webcam.

"Hey, I can see myself!" She began to make faces into the camera. "Is this computer thing supposed to be like a mirror?"

"No, it's not! Get off of there before you break something!" Chisame finally made her way to the computer and shoved the pegasus away from it. "It's really expensive."

"Expensive?" Rainbow Dash grumbled as she went back to the couch, her excitement deflated. "It's just a box with a mirror on the front of it. It can't cost that much."

"It's not just a mirror!" Chisame glared at Rainbow Dash, trying to remember that the pony legitimately had no idea what she was talking about.

"Then what's it for?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I really would be interested to know how it works," Twilight added. "Negi has one and I see him using it a lot, but I never got a chance to ask what he was doing."

"It's sort of a multi-use thing, okay! Write stuff, take pictures, play games, talk to people, find information, look up porn, watch-"

"What's porn?" Rainbow Dash interrupted.

Chisame's eye twitched as she glared at the pegasus, trying to make her disappear through sheer force of willpower. Failing that, she sighed. If this pony didn't know what porn was, Chisame wasn't the one who was going to sully her innocent mind.

"You don't want to know. Trust me." She turned to back to Twilight, who seemed to be the more logical of her two unwanted guests, and continued talking, hoping that she wouldn't echo Rainbow Dash's question. "Anyway, it's called a computer. It's connected to a bunch of other computers through a thing called the internet, and you can use it to send information to other computers. Like you can write notes or papers or whatever on it, and send them to people."

"That sounds really useful," Twilight said. She had only a vague idea of what Chisame was talking about, but the idea of a new note taking method had piqued her interest. "Is that what you use it for?"

"Well, mostly I take pictures of myself wearing costumes and put them online for people to look at, so they-" Chisame clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. The ponies were now aware of her secret hobby.

"What, is that like that porn thing?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"No! It has nothing to do with that. It's more like...modeling. You know, like different outfits."

"Oh, one of our friends from back home runs a dressmaking shop!" Twilight exclaimed. "Although she might have trouble making anything for you because you aren't a pony, but she'd probably just take it as a challenge."

"I'll be sure to look her up if I'm ever in Ponytown or whatever..." Chisame grumbled.

"Okay! It's the Carousel Boutique. It's right off of the town square. You can't miss it."

"I'll keep that in mind." Apparently the ponies didn't do well with sarcasm either.

"So when you put these pictures of you on the computer or whatever, how does everybody else find it?" Rainbow Dash asked. She was slowly edging back towards the computer, but one harsh glance from Chisame caused her to back off.

"I just put them up on the internet and people just come across it." Chisame shrugged, unsure of how else to explain it. "If they look for stuff like costumes, my stuff will pop up."

"So you can look for things on the internet?" Twilight asked. There was a distinctly hopeful gleam in her eye.

"Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff on there. You can find information on just about anything if you-"

"Can you teach me how to use it!-?" The gleam in the unicorn's eyes exploded into a puppy dog stare. "Pleeeeaasseeee?"

"Yeah, sure, fine!" Chisame bit her tongue as the words tumbled out of her mouth. Her intent had been to give a reluctant sounding apology for the fact that she had too many other things to worry about, but her mouth had gotten ahead of her. It was too late; even if she could force herself to rescind her answer, Twilight looked too happy. If Chisame backpedaled now, the unicorn would obviously be crushed. And making the adorable magic pony cry would give Chisame so much bad karma that it was probably easier to just go along with it.

"Thank you so much!" Twilight bounded forward and wrapped her forelegs around Chisame's midsection. Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes; she had seen Twilight going into learning mode before.

Chisame gave Twilight an awkward pat on the head. She hadn't known that ponies were even capable of giving hugs. It was a bizarre sensation. Apparently most of what she knew about horses didn't really apply. Twilight was a lot softer and fuzzier than she had expected. She was mildly cautious about being accidentally stabbed in the stomach by the horn as Twilight nuzzled her, but other than that it actually felt rather nice. For beings that weren't really supposed to exist, these ponies weren't too bad. Maybe she could take some pictures with them for her website. It wouldn't be hard to pass them off as giant stuffed animals, and her fans would love it.

"Uh, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash poked at her friend. Being normally surrounded by that kind of cuteness, she didn't really have any qualms about ruining the moment. "You gonna let go any time soon?"

"Oh, right." Twilight, backed away, leaving Chisame with a coating of purple fuzz.

"You're welcome..." Chisame mumbled. She cleared her throat, sensing an opportunity to salvage the night while at least one of the ponies was on her good side. "Well, I still have to go to class tomorrow, so I sort of need to get to bed..." She nodded at the clock, which showed that it was 4:43 in the morning.

"Of course, of course." Twilight nodded energetically. "Sorry about keeping you up. Especially after you got hit with that thing." She trotted over to the door. "Anyway, it was nice to meet you and I'm glad to see that you're feeling okay. I'll talk to you tomorrow about that computer thing, okay?"

"Sure..."

"See you tomorrow then! Sleep well!" Twilight said as she walked out of the room.

"Goodnight!" Rainbow Dash waved at Chisame before fluttering after Twilight.

Chisame could only sigh as she closed the door after them. Maybe this was just part of the hallucination. Maybe her subconscious had some self-loathing issues and was just taunting her. Why else would she have actually agreed to teach the unicorn how to use a computer? Well, other than the fact that she was too cute to refuse. But it was irrelevant. When the medication wore off, she'd wake up in the morning and have a good laugh at herself. Everything would be back to normal.

* * *

><p>"Please don't kill me! Please don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"<p>

Morgan's babbling had been triggered by Mana's sudden reappearance. Or more specifically, the fact that when she made said reappearance, she was wielding an unnecessarily large nail gun.

"If she's going to kill you, could you at least do the rest of us a favor and die with dignity?" Casey growled.

Mana just rolled her eyes and strode towards Morgan's chair. He clamped his eyes shut, and shuddered as he heard her pull the trigger four times. Either she had horrible aim, or being shot with a nail gun wasn't nearly as painful as he had assumed. There were another four shots, this time off to his left. He opened his eyes just enough to see Mana turning away from Chuck and pointing the nail gun at the floor around Casey's chair. He released a sigh of relief. She was just nailing the chairs to the floor.

"There." She rested the nail gun on her shoulder. "Now you guys won't be making those squeaking noises. I hate that sound. The proper authorities will be here to deal with you in a few minutes. Once we get this sorted out, we'll let you out of the chairs." She strode out of the room and closed the door.

"Morgan, do you speak Japanese?"

"Huh?" Both Chuck and Morgan turned to look at Casey, who was the least likely to bring up such a non-sequitur.

"Uh...no..." Morgan answered. "I mean, I have quite a bit of anime on my hard drive and I had a little bit of a crush on Sailor Moon in high school-"

"Too much information!" Chuck said, loudly enough that anything else Morgan said would be drowned out. "We don't need to know that."

"Nope. No Japanese. Why?"

"Because that girl was speaking Japanese, and you understood everything she said. I know it because of my training, and Chuck has it programmed into his brain. You shouldn't have been able to understand her."

"That is really weird..." Morgan nodded in agreement. "What exactly does that mean?"

"I don't know, but it has to be related to whatever that group was doing with the collider. Whatever it was, it teleported us to Japan, somehow."

"You know..." Chuck mumbled, half to himself, half to his fellow prisoners, "Now that you mention it, I did pick up a strange transmission on my headset right before everything happened."

Casey shot him a surprised glare.

"And you didn't mention this before because?"

"It seemed kinda minor compared to the fact that we got teleported to Japan for no apparent reason."

"Well, what was the transmission?" Morgan asked.

"Well, it was just this voice. I couldn't even tell whether it was a man or a woman."

"What did it say, Chuck?" Casey growled; it was more of an order than a question.

"Uh...it said 'The Poet is coming.'"

"Well, that's entirely useless." Morgan said. "Maybe it's like a code name for some arms dealer or something."

"Not any arms dealer that I've ever heard of," Casey grumbled, not happy that the only potential lead had turned out to be a dead end. "Maybe it's classified. Sounds vaguely familiar, though."

"Maybe this Poet person is responsible for teleporting us here."

"Seriously, Morgan?" Chuck tried and failed to hide the skepticism in his voice. "That's ridiculous. Just because this guy got mentioned in that transmission, you're going to assume that he's the mastermind behind this? That doesn't make any sense!"

"Chuck, we're stuck to these chairs by magic, you got beaten up by an elementary school girl, and Casey got beaten up by a pair of magic ponies. Waking up in Japan is not the weirdest thing that's happened to us today."

"If you think you have it bad, I assure you I have it worse."

All three prisoners looked up to see that Konoemon had somehow managed to open the door and enter the room in complete silence. One of his hands rested atop a cane, the other bore a rather large coffee mug.

"You people just had to sit there. I have to worry about who you are, why you're here, and how you appeared on my campus. This is going to wreak havoc on my blood pressure." He took a long gulp of coffee. "Now, I have some questions, and it's going to be easier on all of us if you just answer. And don't lie, I can tell. Can you do that? I'd really like to get some sleep tonight, and I'm sure you'd love to get out of those chairs."

"That would be nice," Chuck answered with a nod. "I think we can manage that. Can't we, Casey?" He glared at the large man, who grunted in reluctant ascent.

"Sounds good to me," Morgan said. "I really have to go to the bathroom."

"Good." Konoemon took another swig of coffee. "Then let us get started."

* * *

><p>Asuna's alarm clock always seemed to know when she hadn't slept well. It was always loudest on the days when she felt the least inclination to get out of bed. So naturally it was as loud as it had ever been, if not louder. A rush of cold morning air rushed into the bed as she lifted the edge of the blanket enough to stick her arm out. She shivered as she punched alarm off and drew her hand back in. There had been late nights before, but this was the worst. Under normal circumstances, she would have been entertained by the ponies' conversation; listening to one of them attempt to describe the plot of the <em>Terminator<em> franchise despite not really having any understanding of robots, computers, or really anything required to make sense of the movies was comedic gold. Or at least it would have been if not for the fact that her need to wake up at a ridiculous a disgustingly early hour had squelched her sense of humor.

Even though she had her head sandwiched between her pillow and her wadded up blanket, she could still make out the muffled voice of her roommate discussing something with the ponies. While cooking them breakfast, if the smell was anything to go by. Asuna poked her head from under the blanket to find that sure enough, Konoka was hovering by the stove, tending to a skillet filled with a mountain of hash browns. But something seemed a little off.

The first thing she noticed was the lack of sound. The sound of conversation seemed to have vanished, along with the sizzling of the pan. Then she noticed that everyone in the room seemed to be moving very slowly for some reason. In fact, they weren't moving at all. She tossed her blanket to the side and began to climb out of her bunk. It was bizarre. Twilight seemed to be just sitting normally; curled up in a chair at one end of the table. Rainbow Dash seemed to be holding herself still in the middle of a rather awkward gesture, with one of her hooves thrust into the air.

And come to think of it, Konoka wasn't exactly holding a very comfortable position either; she was holding the massive frying pan with one hand, a few inches above the burner. Asuna felt a chill run down her spine as she realized that they weren't just standing still for no reason. There was something more to it. As she looked closer she could see that Rainbow Dash's mane seemed to just be floating in the air. The steam from the skillet hung in the air.

Asuna took a step backward and gasped as she felt something on the back of her neck. She spun around to see that her blanket hadn't fallen back onto her bed after she had thrown it off. It dangled motionlessly in the air, right where she had tossed it. Not wanting to believe what was happening, she ran to the window. Her heart sank as she saw a handful of human figures scattered across the campus. Not one of them was moving. She clutched the window frame to keep her hands from shaking as her exhausted mind finally put the pieces together. Except for her, the entire world was frozen.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Yay cliffhanger. I'm evil, I know.<p>

Anyway, for those who don't reconginze them, the guys who bust through the window are Chuck and Casey from _Chuck_. Which is awesome and you should go watch it.

This chapter has a bit more foreshadowing, although for obvious reasons I'm not going to point out what it is. Or rather, what they are, because there are several things that will become relevant later on. A few more characters will be introduced next chapter, including at least one from a franchise that hasn't been included yet.

Thanks for reading, and (meaningful) feedback is always appreciated.


	6. Temporal Suppression

_ The answer to the issue of free will is simply that it depends on the individual case. Some gods, when creating a sentient being, take it upon themselves to determine every aspect of the being's life and personality. Others tend to allow their creations the freedom to choose their own paths, using the personality they created as a starting point. Whether either one of these methods is better than the other is another argument that has no real answer._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6: Temporal Suppression<strong>

Asuna stared out the window, focusing all of her willpower into a vain attempt to make the distant figures move. Eventually she would have to turn around, but at the moment, every fiber of her being revolted against the idea. She could make excuses for why the tiny people scattered across the campus weren't moving. Maybe they were just standing still for some reason. It could happen.

But the scene behind her was inexplicable; the ponies' manes failing to flow like they should, the still flame above the stove, the potatoes hanging in the air above the pan as it had been flipped...there were no explanations. As long as she didn't look over it, she could just barely believe that it wasn't real; that one of her dreams had stuck in her brain as she woke up, and if she just gave her mind a few minutes to clear itself out-

"Whoa, Asuna! How'd you get over there?"

"Huh?" Asuna spun around to see her roommate and the two ponies staring at her. "What the-?"

"I could have sworn you were in bed..." Konoka said, completely oblivious to the fact that she had been frozen a moment before.

"You didn't teach her how to teleport, did you, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Nope." The unicorn shrugged. "She must have learned it on her own."

"I didn't teleport!" Asuna said, trying to keep her voice steady. "I got out of bed, and all of you guys were-" She paused, realizing that there was no way they were actually going to believe what she had planned to say. Everything was so normal now (aside from the ponies, at least), that even she had a tough time believing what had just happened. Maybe it was all in her head. "You know what? Yeah. I'm a ninja. I've been taking lessons from Kaede about ninja things."

"What's a ninja?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Ask Haruna about it. I'm sure she has plenty of movies on the subject." Asuna started to rub her eyes, which had obviously just been playing tricks on her. "Konoka, can you throw some bacon on there for me? Konoka?"

A twinge ran down Asuna's spine as she realized that it wasn't just Konoka that failed to respond. Her eyes snapped open. The twinge turned into a shudder and cold sweat.

"Hello? Rainbow?" She stepped forward and waved a shaky hand in front of the pegasus' face. Rainbow Dash's eyes were fixed open, but she obviously wasn't seeing anything. "What the hell is going- EAH!"

"WAA-!"

Asuna jumped back as Rainbow Dash suddenly sprang to life. The pony threw herself backward with a look halfway between terror and surprise plastered on her face. She had only recoiled a few inches before freezing again. Asuna pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart had gone straight past regular beating and was pounding so hard that she felt like she would have bruises on the inside of her ribcage, if such a thing were even possible.

Whatever was causing this whole mess had to be just messing with her. Why else would Rainbow Dash only snap out of it when Asuna was practically touching her? Asuna paused. She held her hand up again, this time in front of her own face. Had she unwittingly brushed against the pony's mane? Come to think of it, there was some sort of a sensation on the edge of her palm... She took a deep breath and grabbed hold of Rainbow Dash's mane.

"-AAA!" The pony immediately began trying to wriggle out of Asuna's grasp. "What the hay are you doing?"

"Hold still!" Asuna clamped her other hand on Rainbow Dash's head.

"Are you sure you can't teleport, because you were over by the window, and then you were suddenly like right in my face, and then you kinda spazzed for a sec- Wait, what's going on?" She twisted her head far enough to see Konoka standing unnaturally still.

"I'm not sure...can you just hold still for a second? I just want to try something."

"Okaaay..." Rainbow Dash said, narrowing her eyes.

"Just sit tight, okay?"

Asuna released the pony's head, and held up her hands. The pegasus was still as a statue.

"Hello?" She waved a hand in front of the pony's face. "Anybody home?" No response. "Thought so." Asuna once again took hold of the pony's mane.

"Ow! What are you doing? I thought you were going to do something!"

"I did! You just didn't know it because you were frozen."

"I was what?"

"Look!" Asuna grabbed the pony's head and turned it to look at Konoka. "See? She's not moving. Twilight isn't moving. Nothing is moving except for us! I got out of bed and all of you were frozen. I went over to the window to look out and you started moving again. Then you all froze again. You started moving again when I touched you."

"Wait, you mean that I was like that?" She waved a hoof at Twilight, who had a fairly ridiculous-looking been-frozen-in-the-middle-of-saying-something look on her face.

"Yeah, then I touched you and started moving again. Then I stopped touching you and you stopped moving."

"But I was moving just fine! I wasn't frozen or anything! You were just sort of appearing and disappearing."

"You mean you don't remember being frozen? Weird..."

"So what are we supposed to do about it?

"I don't know, maybe we should-"

"Asuna, what the heck are you doing?"

Both the girl and the pony looked up to see Konoka staring at them.

"I- uh... Listen, what I'm about to say is probably going to sound ridiculous, but just hear me out, okay? Something really weird is going on here..."

* * *

><p>Fluttershy gradually came to her senses with a groan. Something was wrong. The last thing that she could remember was being awoken in the middle of night by some sort of ruckus in the town, and that was a vague memory in and of itself. She had never been more than half awake, and had promptly fallen back into whatever dream she had been lost in. But that pleasant dream had passed, replaced by a nightmare.<p>

She had been falling, falling through a void with bits and pieces of everything that she knew twirling around her. Flashes of Rarity's boutique and Twilight's library spun past her, mixed in with things and places that she couldn't recognize; there was an enormous square building, and what seemed to be a city constructed out of glass. Then everything went dark.

Everything was still dark; she was too terrified to even consider opening her eyes. She knew that she wasn't in her bed anymore; there was a mix of dirt and vegetation beneath her. She raised her head and gave the air a tentative sniff. The breeze was full of trees and leaves and moss and familiarity. Where had she smelled this before? The Everfree Forest? No, it was similar, but not the same. The air in the Everfree Forest was murky, so thick with dread that it took extra effort just to breathe.

This air was cleaner and sweeter; it practically flowed into her lungs. With each breath Fluttershy felt the horror of the unknown beginning to melt away. Not that she was at all at ease, but the foreboding that had grasped her and threatened to fray her nerves had released her. There was still fear, but it no longer clouded her mind, casting its shadow over each thought. It was something that she could face with a clear head.

She opened her eyes.

Everything around her was bathed in cool shadow. She seemed to be lying in a small patch of grass surrounded by a tangle of enormous roots, thrust so far out of the ground that they went over her head. She raised her head. Standing before her was the most enormous tree she had ever seen, silhouetted against the rising sun. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. Not even the Everfree forest had anything like this.

Fluttershy crept up one of the nearby roots and cautiously peeked over the edge. A short way away, a path wound its way through the roots toward what seemed to be an expansive city at the base of the hill on which the tree stood. All of her joints wobbled as she gingerly made her way towards the road. Nothing looked even remotely familiar, but there had to be other ponies in the town who could point her in the right direction.

The air had a chilly bite to it; the sun hadn't been up long enough to give it any warmth. Aside from the occasion rustle of the leaves in the branches of the trees far above her, everything seemed frighteningly still, as if the world itself hadn't quite woken up yet. The tranquility had Fluttershy jump even higher at the sound of a stick snapping behind her. She spun around to face the direction that she thought the sound had come from.

"Uh...h-hello?" Her call was barely louder than a whisper. "Is-is somepony there?"

There was no answer. She began to continue down the path, trying to convince herself that sound was just her nerves playing tricks on her. The effort was short lived, as she heard another noise. Or rather, a series of noises. Footsteps.

"Don't move."

Fluttershy froze mid-step as a cold, feminine voice cut through the air behind her. The words were so matter of fact that the pony felt incapable of not complying. She pressed her hooves into the ground, trying not to shake.

"Turn around. Slowly."

Fluttershy obeyed, dragging her hooves through the dirt as she faced the voice. A lump formed in her throat. Standing on the top of a nearby root was a human. Standing face to face with a human was bad enough. Seeing that the human had a bow and arrow pointed directly at her made it even worse. Well, there was technically no arrow; a mass of glowing energy hovered in its place. Either way, it wasn't anything that Fluttershy wanted coming in her direction.

"Who are you?"

"I-I'm F-fluttershy..." the pony squeaked. She stared at her hooves, not daring to make eye contact.

"Fluttershy?"

"Y-yes. I'm from Ponyville. I don't know how I got here, and I'm sort of lost and I'm just trying to get home, but I don't know how to get there..."

"I'm sorry, I can't help you," the girl answered coldly. "I don't know where I am or how I got here either."

"R-really?" Fluttershy looked up to see that the girl had lowered the bow. While the girl's face was mostly emotionless, her vibrant violet eyes betrayed more than a trace of despondency. She leaped off the root, landing quietly on the path. Without giving the pony a second glance, she started off down the path. "Wait!"

"What is it?" The girl stopped, but didn't even bother to turn around.

"Um...do you remember what happened when you showed up here?" It was just a hunch, but once the question had popped into the pony's mind, she couldn't help but ask it.

"I don't really remember much of it. I was floating in the middle of a storm, and everything went black. When I woke up, I was here."

"O-okay..."

Both of them were silent for a moment, after which the girl turned and continued to walk away.

"Um...I...uh..." Fluttershy mumbled at the girl's back. Her voice trailed off as the girl looked back at her.

"Yes?"

"That-that sounds sort of like what happened to me..." Fluttershy said. "Do you think that the same thing happened to both of us?"

"It's possible," the girl said with a shrug before turning away again.

"So uh...do you think that maybe we can maybe...stay together? I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I just thought that um...because neither of us knows where we are..."

The girl stopped again and spoke without even turning around.

"If you want to follow me, I won't stop you."

She started walking again.

"Oh, okay," Fluttershy said as she took a few nervous steps in the girl's direction. "Um, pardon me for asking, but what's your name?"

The girl didn't even stop walking.

"Homura."

"Ho-mur-a?" Fluttershy stumbled over the syllables; it wasn't like any name she had ever heard.

"Yes, that's right," Homura said as she resumed her walk down the path. "Are you coming or not?"

"Y-yes!"

Fluttershy took a deep breath before trotting down the path after Homura. She had no idea where they were going, but there was no point in wasting time getting there.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Asuna! Hey, Konoka!"<p>

Asuna cringed as she heard Makie's voice. She had hoped that she could make her way to Eva's cottage without running into anyone who would ask questions, but apparently that thought wasn't interesting enough. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for Makie to be anywhere in the vicinity, but here she was.

"So, uh...why are you two dressed like that?" She asked, tilting her head.

As random as it sounded, the question did in fact have quite a bit of merit to it. Konoka was inexplicably dressed in a Victorian-style dress with enough frills on it for half a dozen more dresses. Asuna was hunched over in a rather uncomfortable-looking position, wearing an incredibly oversized trench coat over an enormous lump on her back.

"Uh...we're just trying out some new costumes for Mahorafest," Asuna answered, avoiding eye contact in hope of avoiding further conversation. "It's coming up pretty soon, you know."

"I didn't think it was for another month..." Makie said, scratching her head. "And I thought that the costumes for the festival were more like cosplay type stuff, not like..." She eyed Asuna's hump. "..Frankenstein, or whatever."

"Well, that's why we're testing them out so early! Right, Konoka?"

"Yeah, of course!" Konoka said with a giggle. "You can never start planning too early for the festival!"

"I guess you're right," Makie said. "Come to think of it, I should get started on my costume. I was thinking of dressing up like a magical girl from that-"

Asuna sighed in relief. She never would have thought that these random time freezes would come in handy. Konoka twitched back into motion as Asuna grabbed her hand.

"Come on, we don't have time to sit here and talk to her. I'm sick of everything freezing all the time!"

The redhead began to lurch in the direction of Eva's cottage, Konoka stumbling along behind her.

* * *

><p>"This is freaking ridiculous! Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make Yoshi dissolve in water when the game takes place on a freaking island!-?"<p>

"Still trying to get the last shine sprite, Master?" Chachamaru asked as she emerged from the kitchen. Eva apparently hadn't moved an inch since last night. "Shouldn't you get some sleep?"

"Oh, you're out of standby mode," Eva answered, keeping her eyes glued to the television screen in front of her. "I'll take a nap as soon as I finish this. It'll just be a few minutes."

"That's what you said four hours ago, master."

"I am the freaking Gospel of Darkness! The Dark freaking Evangel! The Undying freaking Mage!" She turned around and glared at the robot girl with bloodshot eyes. "I will not be defeated by

a damn video game!"

"I understand that, but you haven't slept at all in the past twenty four hours."

"I blame Konoemon for that," Evangeline grumbled as she turned back to her game. "That old coot dragged me over to his office at one in the morning. Ended up getting attacked by some more random people. Don't know why the hell he thought that I would have any idea what was going on."

"Perhaps your hundreds of years of experience?"

"Nah, I think he just wanted me around in case things went south. Which they kinda did, but I don't think it was anything that boya couldn't have handled. They were mundanes after all. DAMN IT!" Evangeline punched the armrest of her chair. "Stupid lily pad! How am I supposed to steer the damn thing?" She looked back to Chachamaru. "Listen, after dealing with this crap all night, I just want to get it out of my head."

"Master, you really should get some sleep, especially if it's possible that the Principal calls for your assistance again. Why don't you go to your resort? It will give you a full day's respite from interruption, and it's quite doubtful that the Principal will be requesting your presence in the next hour."

"Why the hell didn't I think of that?" Eva said, massaging her temples with her thumb and forefinger. "Yeah, fine. I'm crashing in the resort for a day. But first go make some breakfast. I'm starving."

"What would you like me to make?"

"As long as it doesn't have onions in it, I don't give a damn."

"Yes, master. It will be ready in a few-"

She was interrupted by a rather loud and frantic knocking on the door.

"Would you like me to answer that?" Chachamaru asked.

"You might as well. Doesn't sound like they're going to go away anytime soon," Eva grumbled. "If it's Konoemon, you tell him to shove it."

"Very well."

Chachamaru turned the doorknob, and the door burst open as Asuna and Konoka barged into the room, the bulky parts of their costumes making a rather large ruckus as they bumped into things.

"What the hell?" Eva said as she glared at the unwelcome guests. "And why are you dressed like-"

"BWAAHH!" The question was answered as Rainbow Dash's head popped out from under the many frills of Konoka's dress. "Whew, is it stuffy in there!" She said as she shimmied her way out.

"Yeah, it was tough to walk with you under there," Konoka said, lifting the edge of the dress to let the pony out from under it. "I'm surprised I managed to make it here without tripping."

"I don't want to hear about it!" Asuna grumbled. She lurched over to the sofa, and dumped her trench coat and hunchback onto it. After a few moments of wiggling, Twilight emerged from the tangle of cloth, flopping awkwardly onto the floor. "At least you didn't have to carry her all this way."

"Oh, it feel so good to get out of there!" Twilight's back cracked a few times as she stretched, happy to not be balled up any longer.

"And to what do I owe this pleasure?" Evangeline muttered, her voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

"Something weird is going on!" Asuna answered.

"I'm well aware of that." Eva eyed the two ponies. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Well, I got up this morning, and suddenly everything except me just froze! Stuff unfreezes if I touch it, so we had to come all the way over here like this!" She put one hand on Twilight's head, and grabbed Konoka's arm with the other. "As a matter of fact-"

Eva couldn't help but twitch at what happened next. Asuna somehow managed to do what was best described as "flicker". In seemingly no time at all she had suddenly moved from the far side of the room to being directly in front of Eva's face. It wasn't really even a movement; one moment she was over there, the next she was uncomfortably close. In fact, her hand was now clamped on top of the vampire girl's head.

"See! This is what I was talking about!" Asuna said, making sure to keep her grip tight, "Everything is frozen!" She pointed out the window where all the leaves had stopped rustling in the breeze.

"So it is," Eva mumbled. There was a vague feeling in the back of her mind that she should be more concerned about what was going on, but the annoyance of Asuna's hand on her head was crowding it out. "What exactly do you want me to do?"

"I don't know! Haven't you ever seen anything like this before? I mean, your resort stretches time out or something. Is something like that going on?"

"Well, yes, there's obviously some sort of time-related weirdness going on here. Not sure how it compares to my resort, though. That basically works by accelerating time inside the resort, not by slowing it down everywhere else. Accelerating time is far easier than slowing it down, so my guess is that something is making time flow faster for you and stuff you're touching rather than slowing everything else down. What's causing that? No clue."

"You don't know!-?" Asuna gave Eva's head a shake. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"First of all, get your hand off my head before I snap it off," Eva said as she grabbed Asuna's wrist, pulling it away from her head. "Second, I haven't slept in the past twenty-four hours, so you're lucky that I haven't already kicked your ass. Third, your best bet is to either go to see those science club girls from our class. I hear they've been experimenting with temporal manipulation, or whatever the hell it is they call it. Wouldn't be surprised if they're mucking around with using magic to power it."

"Chao and Hakase know about magic?"

"Yeah, they've been in on it for a while. Don't ask me how; I didn't ask questions. Now get the hell out of my house before I kick your ass out myself."

"Fine. Come on, let's get out of here."

Eva glared at the two girls and the two ponies, hoping that the concentrated frustration in her eyes would get them back into costume and out of her living room just a little bit faster.

* * *

><p>Homura meandered her way down the hill. She could hear the clopping of the pony's hooves behind her. Sometimes they were a bit distant, forcing her to stop as Fluttershy caught up. At first she had been a bit wary of the talking, winged pony. She had never seen anything quite like her, but the general motif was unfortunately familiar. The pony wouldn't have been at all out of place inside of a witch's barrier. But there was no point in dredging up those unpleasant memories. The witches were a thing of the past, and it was fairly obvious that Fluttershy was far too personable to be a minion.<p>

"Um...excuse me..Homura?"

Fluttershy's voice was so quiet that for a moment Homura wasn't sure whether she had actually heard anything. She turned around to see the pony pawing at the path.

"Yes?"

"I...uh...I was just wondering about what we're going to do." The pony's eyes met Homura's for a split second before focusing back on the ground. "I mean, we don't know where we are, but you looked so...I don't know, like you knew where you were going."

"I'm going into the town so I can find out what this place is. Once I know that, I can decide what to do from there."

Homura's voice sounded quite determined, but in reality she really had no idea what she planned on doing. Her life had been all but dedicated to destroying witches, and then to destroying demons. At the moment, neither of those appeared to be present. At the very least, her Soul Gem hadn't indicated that any of them were anywhere nearby. The corruption that had gathered within it had also completely dissipated for some reason, but she had no idea how or why. No point in dwelling on that. More than anything, she wanted to clear her mind; to get the distractions out of the way.

"Um...excuse me..."

Homura's thoughts had captured her attention long enough for Fluttershy to catch up to her. She looked down to see the pony staring inquisitively up at her.

"Yes?"

"I was...I have a question..." Fluttershy mumbled.

"What is it?"

"That thing on your arm..." Fluttershy said, "I was just wondering what it's for...?"

Homura sighed. Most likely the question was just a clumsy attempt at starting a conversation, which was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment.

"What thing are you talking abou-"

She stopped as her eyes came to rest on the intricately decorated metal disk secured to her arm. How had she not noticed it before? Maybe she had grown so used to its presence in her past that didn't feel out of place. The device had been taken from her on the day she had received her bow, and she had never quite grown used to it's absence; without it's weight bearing down on her arm it felt like a piece of her was missing. But how had it returned? What power could have possibly written it back into being after-

Homura's whole body shuddered at the thought. She could feel her face growing paler as the blood drained out of it. Something like this couldn't have happened. It was impossible. Her legs gave out and she crashed to her hands and knees.

"Homura! Are you okay?" Fluttershy squeaked. She began to prance nervously back and forth, unsure of whether she should attempt to help Homura back to her feet. "I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have asked anything! If I would have known I wouldn't have-"

"I'm fine," Homura grunted. "It just caught me off guard." She took a deep breath and forced herself to her feet. "I used to have this, but it was removed a while back. I was just surprised to see it again."

"Oh..." Fluttershy mumbled.

"This device allows me to temporarily stop time for myself, and for anyone that I'm touching." Homura's mind was still spinning, but she had already buried any outward indications of that. She had learned long time ago how to keep her mind from changing her face. Any traces of her momentary instability had vanished. "Don't move."

Fluttershy twitched as Homura took hold of her mane. There was a hum and a click, and suddenly the entire world went silent.

"W-w-w-what did you do!-?" Fluttershy said. All four of her legs wobbled as she forced herself to look at the now-still world.

"I already told you. I stopped time." Homura gave Fluttershy's mane a light tug. "Come on, we have to get moving."

Fluttershy swallowed hard, nodded, and the two of them started back down the path.

* * *

><p>Asuna sighed as she dragged herself down the path away from Eva's house. Makie was still hanging around for no particular reason, and she was the last person that Asuna wanted to deal with at the moment. Fortunately, the time stop had once again worked in her favor, and Makie was just hanging in the air, mid-skip. Asuna gave Konoka a tug.<p>

"Pick up the pace! I don't want to get stuck talking to her again when things start moving!"

"I'm trying!" Konoka answered. "Slow down! I'm going to-" Her uncertain steps graduated into a stumble and she found herself flat on her face, dragging Asuna down with her. "Sorry. It's hard enough just trying to walk in this dress without hiding a pony under it."

"You think you have it bad?" Rainbow stuck her head out of the bottom of the dress. "At least you can see where you're going. And you keep kicking me in the flank."

"Will you get back under there!-?" Asuna said, waving her free hand randomly in an attempt at a "get back under there" gesture.

"Give me a minute, will you?" the pony answered. "It's tough to breathe under there. And I haven't been outside in forever!"

"Fine, fine! Can we at least move away from from her?" Asuna pointed at Makie. "She's the last person that I want to have to explain this mess to."

"What about Asakura?" Konoka asked as she wobbled her way to her feet, stepping awkwardly around Rainbow Dash. "I bet she'd be worse than Makie."

"She already knows. I don't know how the heck Negi managed to keep her quiet, but...what the hell is that?"

"What's what?" Twilight's head popped out of the hump on Asuna's back. "What's going on?"

"Look!"

Twilight turned her head to see Asuna's arm pointing off into the distance. Despite that everything from the birds to the leaves on the trees was still, there were two small figures moving quickly along a path. Twilight squinted. One of the forms was humanoid, but the other one looked surprisingly pony-like. And it was yellow, with a smudge of pink. Twilight swallowed, trying to resist the temptation of assuming that the pony-like figure was who she thought it was.

"Fluttershy?"

"Who?" Asuna attempted to turn to look at the unicorn, but due to her not being an owl, her neck didn't rotate far enough and she was forced to look at Twilight's nose out of the corner of her eye. It had taken her long enough to adjust to the fact that "Twilight Sparkle" and "Rainbow Dash" were actually names, and this new one sounded like something that Konoka would have come up with in elementary school.

"She was one of my friends from back home!" Twilight answered. "Rainbow Dash, doesn't that look like Fluttershy?"

"Sure does! Let's go!" Rainbow Dash rushed forward, only to stop with a jerk. She looked back to see Konoka holding onto her tail. "What are you doing? They're going the other way! We have to catch up!"

"Yeah, but if you aren't touching me or somebody who's touching me, you freeze, remember?" Asuna held up her hand, which was still gripping Konoka's wrist. "Either I have to run over there by myself, or we all have to maintain contact."

"But we'll never catch up to her like this!" Twilight's voice wavered a little as she watched the pastel blur that was very possibly her friend grow smaller and more blurry as the taller, darker blur dragged it further away.

"Oh, we'll catch up to them all right," Rainbow Dash said. "Asuna, Konoka, hold onto me and don't let go." The pegasus tensed herself and pawed at the ground with her front hoof as the two girls latched onto her tail. "About time I get to stretch my wings a bit. Hold on tight!"

Asuna didn't know much about physics, but she was still quite sure that Rainbow Dash had broken several of its laws as she blasted forward, towing the two girls and the unicorn along behind her as if they were as light as balloons. The entire world seemed to have been replaced by a whirl of psychedelia. The only things she could see that weren't hidden by the spiral of color were the two distant shapes, which were rapidly becoming less and less distant. In fact, they were now uncomfortably close, and Rainbow Dash wasn't showing any sign of slowing down.

The spectrum of colors exploded around her as she felt herself rolling along in a jumbled tangle of limbs, both human and pony. Everything came to a sudden stop with a thud. She blinked a few times to get the flashing colors out of her eyes. As her vision cleared, she had come to the realization that she was upside down, propped up awkwardly against the wall of a nearby building. She turned herself over with a groan, only to find herself staring at the form of the taller, more human figure.

Seeing it so close it was quite clearly a black-haired girl, wearing what appeared to be some sort of vaguely school-ish uniform that didn't even remotely resemble the Mahora uniform. Her face seemed to be devoid of any emotion, although her eyes were so harsh that a chill ran down Asuna's spine. Somehow, she had managed to extricate herself from the wreckage caused by Rainbow Dash's crash, and had a bow and what seemed to be a magic arrow pointed at the rest of the group, who were still recovering from the collision.

"Who are you?" The mysterious girl's voice was just as flat as her demeanor implied. There was no anger or malice, but there was an inexplicable quality to it that made it quite undeniable that she was not to be trifled with. Asuna smiled awkwardly as she tried to think of a suitable response.

"Uh...I'm Asu-WHOA!" She flipped over into the dirt as Fluttershy scrambled out from under her.

"Twilight! Rainbow Dash!" The yellow pony threw her forelegs around her friends and gave them a hug. "I can't believe it! Where did you come from?" Even if they heard the question, they were still too stunned by the impact to respond outside of a pair of dazed smiles. Fluttershy looked up. "Homura, put that down! These are my friends!"

Homura kept the bow drawn, but the pony's voice was so unexpectedly forceful that she felt compelled to lower it.

"I can't believe I found you!" Fluttershy buried her face in her friends' manes as she squeezed them even tighter. No way was she going to lose them again. "I had no idea where you were or where I was and I was so scared-"

"F-fluttershy..." Rainbow Dash groaned, the words being squeezed out of her as if she were a tube of toothpaste. "Can you let go?"

"Oh, sorry!" Fluttershy relaxed her grip, but only slightly. "I just can't believe that you're actually here! I thought I was alone!"

"Well, you aren't!" Twilight said. "We're going to stick together, okay?"

"Of course!" Fluttershy said.

"What about those other two?" Homura asked, eying Konoka and Asuna apprehensively.

"Uh...I don't know..." Fluttershy's voice reverted to its previous whispery volume. She seemed to grow smaller as she noticed the presence of the other two humans. She had just climbed out from under one of them, and was currently sitting on top of the other.

"They're fine," Twilight answered. She pried herself out of Fluttershy's grasp, and stepped off of Konoka's back. "They helped us out after we got dumped here."

"I see," Homura said. Her narrowed eyes seemed to say that she wasn't entirely ready to take the pony at her word, but she waved her hands and the bow vanished into the air.

"So, I was-uh, we-" Fluttershy babbled, trying to decide which of hundreds of questions bouncing around her head she would actually ask. "What happened? How did we end up here? Where are we anyway?"

"Calm down!" Twilight said as she patted Fluttershy's head, "We're still trying to answer those questions ourselves. All we know is that we're in a country called Japan, at a really giant school called Mahora Academy. Rainbow Dash and I have been staying in the dormitory with these girls." She waved at Asuna and Konoka, who were now back on their feet.

"I'm Fluttershy." She bobbed her head.

"I'm Konoka, and this is my roommate Asuna. It's nice to meet you. Who's your other friend?" She indicated Homura, who stood rather awkwardly on the edge of the conversation.

"My name is Akemi Homura." Having introduced herself, she bowed slightly, but showed no other inclination to offer anything else.

"I met her right after I got here," Fluttershy said. "We thought we should stick together until we figured out what to do. At first I was kinda scared, but then I found out that she has this magic device that lets her stop time-"

"Waitwaitwait!" Asuna interrupted. "She can stop time? She's the one who's been freezing everything?"

"Yes." Homura held up the arm with the metal disc on it. "This allows me to temporarily suspend the flow of-"

"Dammit, you nearly gave me a coronary!" She thrust a finger in Homura's direction. "You shouldn't go around randomly stopping time like that! I had no idea what the hell was going on when everything around me just stopped!"

"You were unaffected?" Homura tilted her head slightly, her blank expression hiding most of her confusion. "That has never happened before."

"It's some sort of weird magic immunity thing," Asuna said with a shrug. "But yeah, it didn't freeze me or anything I was-..." She stopped and looked down at the ponies, who were all sitting together a good ten feet away. "...touching. Time is running normally now, isn't it?"

"Time resumed flowing normally when you collided with me."

"Oh crap!" Asuna rushed over to the ponies and began to shoo them towards the shrubs that lined the nearby building. "You guys have to hide before-"

"Wow, ponies!"

"Dammit." Asuna's eye twitched as she recognized the voice of her gymnastically inclined classmate.

"They're so cute!" Makie skipped past Asuna and wrapped her arms around the ponies, aggressively cuddling them.

"Hey, watch the wings!" Rainbow Dash yelled, wriggling furiously in an attempt to break Makie's grasp.

"They can talk!-? That's so cool!" She squeezed even tighter. "Cuuuute!"

"I think that's enough, Makie," Konoka said as she peeled the girl's arms off of her targets. "You wouldn't want to hurt them, would you?"

"Of course not!" Makie answered, releasing the ponies. "Oh, who's this?"

"She's a...visitor," Asuna said. She took a deep breath and closed er eyes as she tried to think of a way to explain this incident to Makie without actually telling her anything.

"Of course. I didn't think I'd seen you around here before! My name is Makie!"

"M-my...my name is Homura." She babbled, speaking about twice as fast and with a good deal more uncertainty than anything else she had said thus far.

"Okay!" Makie seized one of Homura's hand and shook it wildly. "Are you one of Asuna's friends?"

"I...I'm not from around here..." Homura stared at the ground, trying to hide the fact that her cheeks were starting to flush. "I just ran into them a few minutes ago..."

"Well, this is just great..." Asuna mumbled. She was mildly curious about why Homura now sounded more like that yellow pony they had just met and less like the assertive hardass who had been trying to boss her around a few minutes earlier, but there were more important issues to attend to at the moment. "Konoka, get the ponies out of sight before somebody else sees them and give your grandpa a call."

"Okay!" Konoka nodded happily as she directed the ponies towards the bushes.

Asuna sighed as she dug around in her pockets for her pactio card. She wasn't sure where Negi was, and she didn't have the time to wait for him to answer his cell phone. The pactio card was more or less guaranteed to get to him, and had the extra bonus of making it obvious that she required his immediate attention. She faced away from the open space and pressed the card to her forehead.

_Negi, we might be in trouble. Another pony, and a girl showed up. Also, Makie saw the ponies, so yeah, I'm sure you realize the problem here. We're just sort of hiding around the administration building closest to Eva's cottage. Hurry up!_

She lowered the card and took a deep breath. The ponies were totally out of sight, except for the odd rustle and muffled complaints about how the branches were poking them in uncomfortable places. Granted, a group of four middle school students pacing nervously behind one of the most out-of-the-way buildings on campus was still kinda suspicious, but it was better than having to once again make an attempt to explain the ponies. At least Makie didn't seem too curious about them; she was currently too distracted blabbering about why waffles were superior to pancakes. Oddly enough, it seemed to be distracting Homura equally well. Hopefully it would keep both of them occupied until Negi showed up.

* * *

><p>Casey didn't get tired easily. Years of NSA field work had trained him not to fall victim to fatigue. Both mind and body had been honed by countless hours of alert stillness, whether weathering a jungle monsoon, or spending a week living inside the walls of a Communist Dictator's mansion. Mere men might find their resolve flagging after four days and nights of winding their way through the Swiss Alps to infiltrate the mountain retreat of a dangerous arms dealer, but Colonel John Casey didn't so much know the meaning of the word "tired". Well, he did, but not from personal experience.<p>

But despite his typically inhuman stamina, he found himself fighting to keep his eyelids from drooping. It wasn't from any sort of physical exhaustion; he had been counting the hours since he had last been asleep, and he knew for a fact that he had at least eighteen hours lefts before he needed to rest. No, this was a mental weariness. No matter how hard he fought it, he couldn't keep himself from dozing. For the first time in years, he was losing the battle against fatigue, all because that old, eggplant-headed man would not shut up.

It had started off well, with the assurance that they would shortly be freed, but Konoemon had long since gotten off on a tangent about how that girl who was apparently a vampire or something had tricked him into an Eternal Life loop in their last weekly game of Go. At least he had had the decency to release them from the chairs and give them some food. And he wasn't skimping either. Casey knew all the best meat bun stands in Tokyo, but the ones the Principal had brought along were the best he had ever eaten.

"I mean, one would think that the _ko_ rule would prevent those sort of things, but apparently there are some infinitely looping positions that are so rare that they didn't bother creating a rule to avoid them. I suppose that a _super ko_ rule would have-"

_ "Everybody was Kung Fu Fightiiiiing!"_

He stopped at the sound of a muffled voice from his robes. Konoemon reached into an inside pocket and drew out his cellphone.

_"Those cats were fast as lightning!" _

"I'm sorry, I have to take this. Granddaughter." He flipped the phone open. "Yes, dear? What is- oh. Another pony, you say? Who? Ohhh..." He groaned. "I'll be right there." He closed the phone with a click. "I have some business I must attend to. Just as well. I believe I've given you all of the most important information. I'll have Mana come along in a moment to show you to your new lodgings. I apologize again for the inconvenience." The old man bowed before heading out the door, not even bothering to close the door behind him.

"Well, I think that went well," Morgan said, as he took a meat bun from the table that Konoemon had set up. "We finally get to get out of here, get some sleep-"

"Yet we still have no clue how we ended up in Japan, or why there are magic ponies. Magic ponies, Morgan!" Chuck grumbled.

"Well, yeah..." Morgan said with a shrug. "But it's not like we can really do much about that." He took a bite out of the meat bun and continued to mumble around the mouthful. "You heard that old guy. He'll let us know what's going on when he makes any progress, so while we wait for him to do stuff, we might as well make the most of it."

"Are you crazy?" Chuck stared at Morgan, utterly incredulous at how blasé the latter was being. "I'm not going to just sit on my behind and do nothing!" He leaned in and lowered his voice. "We have no idea where Sarah is. I can't just sit by. We have to find her."

"I know, Chuck," Morgan answered, "...but just think about about it, man. We have no idea how we got here or why there's suddenly magic and pixie dust and fairies and whatever. At least that old dude sort of had some idea of where to start, which is more that we have." He took another meat bun. "Besides, I'm kinda tired, and I bet Casey has a headache from getting kicked in the head. He probably wants to get rid of that mustache too."

"Oh come on!" Chuck turned to Casey. "Are we supposed to just hang around and twiddle our thumbs or something while Sarah is out who-knows-where?"

"I hate to say it, but I'm with Grimes on this one," Casey answered. "You should know by now that the first step to getting anything done is reconnaissance. We need to gather information before we go off looking for Walker. Besides, you know as well as I do that she's perfectly capable of handling herself if she runs into a group of wizards."

"They prefer to be called mages, actually."

All three men looked up to see Mana standing in the doorway, her cold glare making it clear that she'd rather be elsewhere. Chuck and Morgan wilted slightly under her stare; Casey merely responded with a stare of his own.

"We're putting you up in the shrine for the time being. It's hardly the best accommodations, but it's certainly more comfortable than this cell. If you'll kindly come along, we can have you situated within the hour. I'm sure that after the events of the past day, you'll be needing some rest."

Casey gave an affirmative snort as he stood up and nodded at his two companions to do the same. Morgan sprang out of his chair and headed for the door, Chuck following reluctantly behind him. Even for a spy, this had been a long day, and they needed some time to get a plan together.

* * *

><p>"There's a <em>what?<em>"

"A temporal anomaly."

"When did you discover it?"

"I was conducting the preliminary assessment of the Cassiopeia's displacement algorithms. While a rapid succession of activations successfully mimics the effects of a cessation of normal temporal progression, any attempts to create a retrogression have been unsuccessful. The diagnostic program records no damage in the device itself."

"Well, then the problem is obviously in the program."

"I believed that was the case, so I reinstalled the beta version of the program as a control test. Despite successfully creating a retrogression in the temporal flow on all previous occasions, all attempts met with failure. As such, I attempted to apply the device manually, at which point I received the same result. It seems to retain full function in slowing and stopping chronology, but reversal seems to be impossible."

Chao began to shake out of pure frustration. The whole incident with her magic stockpile spontaneously dwindling was bad enough, and now her attempt to divert her thoughts away from it by dedicating her attention to another project was backfiring rather spectacularly. Fortunately, she had plenty of experience keeping all of that stress beneath the surface. When see finally turned around to face Hakase, she appeared as bright and chipper as she ever had.

"So the Cassiopeia no longer travels back in time, you don't know why, and you want me to take a look at it?" she asked.

"Yes. My specialties lie in robotics, chemistry, and physics. Temporospatial programming is not one of my areas of expertise. Especially as you've only recently informed me that it is a viable scientific discipline. You don't suppose that this issue is related to the sudden decrease of mana, do you?"

"It's a possibility, I suppose," Chao said with a sigh. "Were the mana levels inside the test chamber set to the standard concentration?"

"Of course."

"In that case, I'm a bit hesitant say they're definitely related; you know the relationship between correlation and causation as well as I do. Although I must admit that such a large coincidence does merit investigation. Tell you what, I'll go take a look at the Cassiopeia. Meanwhile, I need you to go log into the University Science Department's network and download all the data concerning mana levels around campus. Their records are far more comprehensive than anything I've measured."

"Even I don't have the authorization to access those records," Hakase said. "None of the students do, even at the University level."

"I know, which is why I have this." Chao smiled as she held up a USB drive. "Plug this in and it'll save you the trouble of having to bother with the passwords. Now get going. The offices are usually empty this time of day." She waved Hakase away and spun her chair back around to face her desk.

Her face now out of sight, she grimaced. The two most central components of her plan were currently acting up in a way that made absolutely no sense. She had been crunching numbers all night, and everything was totally inconsistent with everything else. Worrying about the fact that the stupid tree had suddenly crapped out on her was bad enough without having to worry about getting the Cassiopeia to do what it was supposed to do. And it had broken in an impossible fashion; it was one of those things that either worked or it didn't. Being able to stop and slow time but not reverse it was like breaking a bottle by being able to fill it but not pour it out. If the issue really was with the device itself and not the program...she didn't even want to think what that implied.

_Ding!_

She glanced at her computer screen. A small flashing window in the corner told her that someone had sent her a message. Her eye began to twitch as she saw the flashing name in the window. No way was she going to waste time with this. The handle was...fitting, to say the least. No point in adding any more frustration to what was already one of the worst days she had had in the past two years. She slammed down the lid of the laptop. Time to get back to work.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Apologies for taking so long. It's coming to the end of the semester, and I had like a gazillion papers to write. Not to mention that I had a nasty case of writer's block for the middle section of this chapter. I don't think it's ever taken me so long from start to finish. Hopefully as the semester ends, I'll be able to update quicker.<p>

Anyway, for those of you who don't recognize her, Homura is one of the main characters of _Puella Magic Madoka Magica. _No, her inclusion in the story does not mean that everything is going to suddenly become all dark and depressing. I intend for the bulk of this story to be lighthearted, so don't worry about that. While I'm at it, I definitely do recommend _Madoka Magica_; it's rather dark, but it isn't totally hopeless, and it's one of the most tightly-plotted animes I've seen. Also, if you've been meaning to see it, I suggest you do so now, because I'm probably going to end up spoiling quite a bit of stuff about it, and I guarantee that this is a series where you don't want to go in spoiled.

Moving on, there was quite a bit of stuff that I was going to put in here, but it was getting long enough as it is. I was going to stick in more _Chuck_-related material, and actually include more of Konoemon's speech, but it was unnecessary, and I'm starting to get sick of all the "character gets introduced to magic" scenes, so I'm going to try to keep those to a minimum. Similarly, I'm getting a bit sick of writing nothing but introductions all the time, so I'll probably introduce new characters a bit differently. If they seem to integrate into the cast with surprising speed, remember that it's either that or having see yet another scene were X Random Person expresses surprise at the fact that there are magical ponies.

I had also considered actually including the online conversation that Chao is having, but it makes more sense to shove it off until later, in no small part because I don't want to introduce that character quite yet. Besides, there's no point in dragging the end of the chapter out after the main conflict gets resolved. Needless to say, the character in question is actually related to the overarching plot (yes there is an overarching plot other than "random characters appear")

I still have finals next week, including two end of semester final papers, so don't expect an update until after Christmas. Possibly until after New Years, if I get Skyward Sword for Christmas. This also sort of applies to _Nerima_, which I'll try to update before Christmas, but no promises.

Thanks for reading thus far. Hopefully it's been enjoyable. Reviews are awesome.


	7. Searching for What isn't There

_Even among the gods themselves, the level of free will their creations receive is a matter of contention. Of course, the mere question of whether the creations can even have free will in the first place is a matter of debate. Some gods do not even believe that their creations have the same level of sapience as their creator._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7: Searching for What Isn't There.<strong>

_Log #4_

_May 25th_

_ Today, Chisame is finally going to teach me how to use the Internet! She was going to do it a few days ago, but after Fluttershy and that other girl showed up, everyone got a bit distracted by everything that's going on. I've still been mostly stuck in Negi's room, but it hasn't been too bad now with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy here. Fluttershy was freaking out a bit at first, but I think she's doing quite well. Negi introduced her to Chamo, and he's been keeping her more or less occupied. I think he reminds her a bit of Angel; they're both a bit mischievous. At the very least he'll keep her mind off of worrying about where we are, or what happened to our other friends. _

_ Rainbow Dash has spent most of her time either complaining about how she can't fly or she's in Haruna's room watching those movie thingamajigs. She got me to watch a few of them, and they look really cool, but I couldn't really tell what was going on. Something about a robot coming from the future and then another robot trying to blow up the first robot or something. Haruna says that she has another one of these movies that she thinks I'd like more; something about "the thinking man's action movie". I'm not quite sure what she meant, but I suppose if I have the time, I could watch it._

_ I've been pretty busy, though. I finally got around to reading through my astronomy books to see if I can figure out what happened, but most of them haven't been helpful. The only one that has a section on odd magical events is the __Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to All Things Astronomy_._ Well, at least the version I have. It's a two-volume work that has the _Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to Astronomical Anomalies _appended to the end of it. I haven't gotten a chance to look at it in detail yet. I wish I had looked through this book first; it seems to be the only one that will help._

_ There was a rather odd note on the inside of the back cover: __"__A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof." I'm not entirely sure who wrote it in there. At first I thought it might be the Princess, as the book is from her library (she graciously allowed me to borrow her copy after Spike accidentally destroyed mine), but the writing doesn't really resemble hers. It's strange, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the book._

_ Anyway, Negi and I have been comparing the respective magical systems of our worlds in an attempt to explain how myself and the other ponies ended up here. We haven't really gotten to examining the interaction of the different types of magic yet. Apparently there aren't any noticeable differences in magical affinity for different human races. Since humans don't have cutie marks, the magic they learn is limited only to what they choose to study. In regard to human magic, there don't seem to be any spells unique to individuals; everyone theoretically learns each spell as easily as anyone else. In turn, Negi seemed to be surprised by the fact that the vast majority of unicorns are limited in the scope of their spells._

_ I wonder if that means that earth ponies and pegasi could learn magic here. Once Fluttershy adjusts a bit more, maybe I'll try to teach her something. Rainbow Dash is probably settled enough; she took the whole thing in stride, but I think it might be a bad idea to teach her the kind of spells that Negi is describing._

_ I think the reason for that might be that the way the different magic systems focus the magic. In Equestria, magical energy normally accumulates in a unicorn's-_

Twilight looked up from her journal as she heard a sudden rush in the hallway. It was just about time for the students to come back to the dorms. It felt odd that she was already acclimating to this new pattern of life. In fact, all of the newcomers seemed to be dealing unreasonably well. Rainbow Dash was perfectly content; and even though Fluttershy was still a bit jittery, she seemed to be mostly stable. She didn't know any of the other people who had apparently appeared along with herself and the ponies, but they all seemed to be taking the circumstances in stride.

The doorknob rattled for a few seconds before Asuna burst into the room.

"Hey, Twilight." She paused for a moment as her brain tried to reject the fact that greeting the purple unicorn was becoming something of a regular occurrence. She shook her head. Stranger things had happened, after all.

"Good afternoon, Asuna!" Twilight closed the journal. "Where are Negi and Konoka?"

"Negi is in the offices trying to catch up on his paperwork. He's kinda fell behind when everybody suddenly showed up," she answered as she tossed her backpack onto the couch. "Konoka is with Nodoka, Yue, and Haruna over at Library Island. Now that things have settled a bit, the Library Club is back in-"

"Library club!-?" Twilight perked up as she repeated the words. "There's a library club? And they have their own island?"

"Uh...yes, there's a library club," Asuna said, taken slightly aback by the unicorn's unexpected enthusiasm. "And yeah, Library Island is sort of the main library that most of the school uses. It's...big. You should probably ask Nodoka or Yue about it. I'm sure they'd give you a tour."

"How big is it?"

"Big enough that if you don't have a guide who knows their way around, you aren't coming back out. And having rock climbing gear doesn't hurt either."

"Wow, really? Back when I lived in Canterlot my room was right down the hall from the royal library! I got lost in there a few times before I learned my way around."

"That's...nice," Asuna mumbled. She had just finished one of those days where every single teacher seemed to hand pick all the questions that she didn't know the answers to, and was in no mood to keep continue the trend. Twilight had only been around for a few days, but Asuna already knew her well enough to tell that the questions weren't going to stop unless her attention was directed elsewhere. "Chisame said she was going to teach you how to use computers, right?"

"Yes, she's been rather busy lately, so I haven't had a chance to go over there yet."

"She's not busy, she's just putting it off." Asuna rolled her eyes. Twilight obviously wasn't good at picking up the subtleties of Chisame's personality. "She's in her room now and she's not doing anything important. If you head over there now, you should be able to catch her."

"Really?"

"Yeah, better bring your journal along so you can take notes."

"Cool! If this Internet thing is half as informative as she described it, this will be incredibly helpful." She floated her journal and a few of her books into her saddlebags and draped the whole thing across her back. "Is there anyone in the hallway?"

"There's shouldn't be at the moment. Most of the class are still doing club activities."

"Okay." Twilight stuck her head into the hallway, confirming Asuna's statement. "I'll be back in an hour or so."

"Alright, see you later." Asuna waved as Twilight disappeared into the hallway. "Ugghhh!" She flopped onto the couch. "We really need to get those ponies their own rooms. This room is crowded enough with just the three of us."

* * *

><p><strong> jackassTranscendance messaged temporalJellyfish on May 23 at 8:04 PM.<strong>

JT: I realize you aren't going to read this until after it's too late to be useful, but at least this way I can say that I tried.

JT: Don't waste your time trying to use the Cassiopeia to travel back in time.

JT: It's not going to work.

**temporalJellyfish has gone idle at 8:05 PM.**

JT: What did I tell you?

JT: I'll be waiting when you get back in...

JT: Let's say four and a half hours.

JT: It'll probably take about that long to realize that this isn't just a bug that needs to be ironed out. See you then.

**temporalJellyfish is now active at 12:34 AM.**

JT: Right on schedule.

TJ: What do you want?

JT: Just leaving some friendly advice, which you ignored, unfortunately enough.

TJ: What, pray tell, are you talking about?

JT: I suggest you scroll up a bit and read the messages I left you earlier.

TJ: And once again you live up to your screenname.

JT: That's unnecessarily harsh.

JT: Although I did choose it primarily because I figured you'd react that way.

TJ: Given that you have circumvented my every attempt to block you or otherwise prevent you from sending me these messages, I find it difficult to believe that you couldn't have contacted me somehow if you really wanted to be helpful.

TJ: As opposed to sending me a few messages that you were fully aware that I would ignore.

JT: I figured I'd give you the choice of whether or not to listen to what I have to say. The reason I left you a message was so that you would have that choice.

JT: It's entirely true that I could have sent you a message that you couldn't possibly have ignored, but I prefer to leave the ball in your court.

TJ: I fail to see how you left me any choice at all if you knew I would ignore your message.

TJ: You might as well have not sent it.

JT: As I said in my very first message to you, I sent it so that you can't complain about how I withheld the information.

JT: It's entirely your fault that you ignored it. I had no part in it; it was entirely of your own volition.

JT: Just because I know what you'll choose doesn't mean I determine your choice.

TJ: Then how, exactly, did you know what I would choose.

JT: I know you well enough to tell.

TJ: I assume that you are self-aware enough to realize that your statement could be taken as rather inappropriate and somewhat sinister?

TJ: You should be glad that I am intelligent enough to realize that is not what you are trying to say.

JT: If you weren't intelligent enough for that, I wouldn't have said it.

JT: Suffice to say, I've hardly been spying on you or anything of that nature.

JT: To put it in a less questionable way, I have quite a bit of insight into your character. I merely understand you very well.

JT: Which is how I can tell that there are more pressing matters on your mind at the moment.

TJ: I suppose that is my cue to ask you how you knew that all my attempts at traveling into the past would prove futile.

TJ: So, how exactly did you come by that piece of information.

JT: I'm afraid I can't answer that.

JT: If I told you the truth you wouldn't believe me.

JT: Cliché, I know.

TJ: If it was not for the fact that you were right about the Cassiopeia not working in reverse, I would assume that you only send me these messages to annoy me.

TJ: If you want to give me a choice in the matter, then why did you leave me alone after I blocked your account?

JT: Because it's more important that we have this conversation.

JT: Although if you tell me now that you don't want anything to do with me I can guarantee that you won't receive any more messages.

JT: But we both know that you aren't going to say that.

TJ: And why am I not going to say that. Do tell.

JT: Because if there's one thing you can't stand, it's not knowing what's going on.

JT: You've always been on top of everything, and any unexpected obstacles were minor setbacks at worst.

JT: But now you've run up against something that you know you have no chance of explaining, and I don't think I'm too far off the mark when I say that it scares you.

JT: It scares you because for all your life everything has always fallen into place. Everything could be explained by science. Either that, or by magic. But magic is basically a science to you anyway.

JT: But there are things that no amount of scientific examination will ever explain.

JT: Like why the Cassiopeia no longer works like it should.

JT: You can examine it and run diagnostics on it for as long as you like, but you'll never find the problem because according to your theories, everything is in perfect working order.

JT: You've found a question that science doesn't know the answer to.

JT: But I know the answer.

JT: Just like I know exactly where all that energy that drained out of the World Tree disappeared to.

JT: Of course, I can't explain that either, but the mere fact that I'm even aware of it at all should be enough to convince you that I'm aware of things that have eluded you.

JT: In the back of your mind, you know that I'm the only one with the answers you want, and you're not going to cut yourself off from that information.

JT: Are you?

TJ: Even if you do know this information, it seems that you are dead set against giving any of it to me, so I fail to see why maintaining this line of communication is worth my time.

JT: You're bluffing, but that's beside the point. And of course, it's completely understandable that you're rather reluctant to bother with me, given my own reluctance to part with any information.

JT: So I'll give you a few pointers as a goodwill offering. If you find them helpful, we can maintain our interactions.

JT: If not, say the word and I'll leave you alone.

TJ: Very well. What is this advice of yours?

JT: Stop bothering with the Cassiopeia, or at least stop bothering trying to get it to go back in time. For the time being, travel into the past is impossible.

TJ: I am not going to abandon the past two years of work solely because you tell me to.

JT: Like I said, you can take or leave my advice. I can tell you now, that avenue of research is going to be fruitless.

JT: Which is why I'm giving you a new direction.

JT: Recently, there has been a bit of an...incident on the campus. You'd do well to pay more attention to that.

JT: Particularly, any new arrivals at Mahora.

JT: Even more particularly, the specific group of new arrivals that happen to be staying at the Tatsumiya Shrine.

JT: Mana has more information about the goings on. You know as well as I do that she'll part with that information if you meet her price.

JT: I'm sure that you could gather the information on your own, but it'll be a lot quicker if you pony up the cash to get it from her.

TJ: Is there anything else?

JT: You should probably forget everything you know about equine biology. It's not going to help you.

TJ: …

TJ: What does that have to do with anything?

JT: You'll see.

JT: Talk to you later.

**jackassTranscendance is offline at 12:44 AM.**

TJ: Wait.

TJ: Why do I even bother?

**temporalJellyfish is offline at 12:45 AM.**

Chao's eye twitched as she finished re-reading the chatlog for the half-dozenth time that afternoon. The longer she stared at it, the more frustrated she grew. He had been right. Despite both herself and Hakase pressing stubbornly on for another day and a half, all attempts to repair the Cassiopeia or otherwise diagnose the problem ended with a dead end. She wasn't planning to give up on it, of course. Too much of her plan depended on it being in working order, which was why Hakase was running currently yet another test on it.

The email that she had just received from Mana wasn't exactly helping her mood, either. A wire transfer of 300,000 yen to the mercenary's account had yielded a confirmation that there were, in fact, three visitors staying in the shrine. American government agents. Mana had dealt with them before, and their style was rather distinctive. One of them was an old pro, the other two were younger. Of the junior agents, one seemed fairly competent. The other one was apparently so inept that even Mana was baffled as to how he managed to ever get approved.

The odd thing was that one of them, the competent young agent, apparently derived his competence from some sort of device known as "the Intersect". Luckily enough for Mana, it had taken them a day or two to realize that the walls of the shrine were paper thin, and about as capable of muffling noises as a screen door. From what little Mana had heard, it seemed that some kind of information had been directly implanted into his head, a rather impressive feat for mundanes.

And that was as much as Mana knew. Or at least as much as she was willing to part with unless Chao forked over some more cash. The only subsequent info Chao could wring out of her without paying extra was that the two younger agents had apparently worked in tech support before starting government work. In all likelihood, the only reason Mana was willing to part with that was that it was utterly irrelevant. Of course, it didn't stop Mana from hinting that there was far more to the story. She was hardly above withholding the most useful bits and pieces if she thought she could get more out of it. Fortunately, that jackass guy was also right about the fact that Chao had her own ways of finding things out.

"Hakase, come in here please."

The whirring from the next room ground to a halt and a moment later Hakase stuck her head through the doorway.

"Yes? I just finished the analysis of the power supply-"

"Let me guess," Chao interrupted, for once in her life hoping that she was wrong. "You still have no idea what the problem is."

"Unfortunately, no." Hakase shook her head. "Everything seems to be in working order. Shall I recompile the retrogression program to ensure we didn't install a corrupted version?"

"No, that won't be necessary. There's something else I need you to do," Chao said as she spun her chair around. "I know it's a bit out of your typical duties, but I need you to sort through the recordings from the bug outside the headmaster's office."

"What for?"

"Anything involving visitors from off-campus. I have reason to believe that they might be involved in the irregularities of magic accretion and the problems with the time machine."

"And what would that reason be?" Hakase asked, raising her eyebrow inquisitively.

"Call it a hunch."

"That is hardly suitable basis to act upon."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Chao grumbled, waving her hand dismissively. "But you need a break from tinkering with the Cassiopeia. Just humor me, okay?"

"Very well." Hakase rolled her eyes and retreated back into the other room, mumbling to herself about how it wasn't like scientifically sound to make decisions without any factual basis.

Chao turned back to the screen. The chatlog was still there, taunting her. She closed the window with a snort. The fact that she had redirected Hakase made her feel like she was acknowledging the accuracy of her mysterious source. She wasn't, of course. She preferred to think of it as fact checking. If this didn't pan out, she could stop worrying about it and move on to more important things. And it was hardly as if she was letting that jackass order her around. Sure, she was looking into the areas he had suggested, but she'd be a fool not to. Oh no, she was going to dig even deeper than he was expecting. She was going to find out who he was.

All she knew at the moment was that he was apparently something of a hacker. He had circumvented her every attempt to block him, even the custom firewalls she had designed herself. Tracking his location would prove difficult. She had no doubt that she could do it, but she was rather stretched for time as it was. Fortunately, she knew a shortcut. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled up her contact list.

**temporalJellyfish messaged eternalSeptember on May 25 at 4:04 PM.**

TJ: I know you are in your room right now, so do not bother pretending that you are not.

TJ: I have a job for you.

TJ: I will meet you in your room shortly.

t**emporalJellyfish is offline at 4:06 PM.**

* * *

><p>"Okay, let's try this again..." Chisame groaned as she massaged her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. Explaining the Internet to someone who was bad with computers was annoying. Explaining the Internet to someone who didn't even know what a computer <em>was<em> was a pain in the behind. Explaining the Internet to someone who didn't know what a computer was and also happened to be a magical unicorn was a test of her sanity. A test that she she was failing. "You like books, right?"

"Of course! I live in a library, after all."

"Okay, so imagine that you have this magic book."

"Do you mean a spellbook? Because I have a few of those already."

"Of course you do..." Chisame grumbled. "No, I mean like a blank book, but the book itself has some sort of magical properties. Like it has different spells on it that let it do different things. Like you can write math problem in the right part of it and it'll solve it for you."

"That could be pretty useful."

"Yeah. Okay, now imagine that there are a bunch of these magical books, and that each of your friends have one. Then imagine that when you write stuff into the book, you can set it up so your friends can see some of it. That's what the internet is like. People put stuff on their computers that other people can look at. Of course, there are like millions and millions of them, and some of them are dedicated just to holding information that other people put there, but you get the idea. You do get the idea, right?" She eyed the unicorn nervously, hoping that she had finally hit on an analogy that actually worked.

"Yes, of course," Twilight answered.

"Good. Well, the Internet is just like that, except people use it for all sorts of stuff other than just writing. They can post pictures, videos like those things that Haruna was making you watch, games, whatever. And you can take stuff from other people's books and move it into your own books, or whatever. There's so much random crap on there that it's tough to actually find the relevant stuff. Some somebody put together a program – spell, if we're gonna stick with the magic book thing – that lets you find stuff."

"I see," Twilight said, nodding. She had really understood about half of Chisame's networking lecture, but she believed she had a fairly good grip on the basic nature of the thing. It would certainly make much more sense when Chisame finally let her actually use the computer. "So computers can send information to other computers, and some of them are used to host information where other computers can get to it?"

"Exactly," Chisame said with a sigh of relief. "I'm guessing you want to try it out for yourself now?"

"Yes!" Twilight's eyes widened.

"Okay, then," Chisame said, opening her laptop with mock solemnity. "Here's the thing that lets you find other stuff. We call it Google."

"Ooooh!" Twilight spoke with a sense of awe that one would usually reserve for the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. She stared for a moment at the page. "Um...what do I do?"

"Type in whatever you want to search for."

Twilight looked at Chisame inquisitively.

"Type?"

Chisame's head very nearly simultaneously exploded and imploded from the effort of keeping her frustrated scream inside of her mouth. She settled for tearing out several handfuls of hair and allowing the rage to leak gradually from her lips, making a sound not unlike air escaping from a balloon. Her entire body trembled with frustration for a moment before she let out the rest of the disgruntlement escape in an exasperated sigh.

"Okay..." She took a deep breath. Under normal circumstances, the little voice in her head would tell her to strangle the pony and be done with it, but that was absurd. As ornery as that voice could be, it wouldn't dare suggest slaughtering something so adorable, even if that something's very existence was too ridiculous to be actual. "Typing is how you put information into the computer. Instead of writing letters, you use your fingers to hit the buttons for the letters that you want."

"Fingers?"

Chisame resisted the urge to slam her head against the wall as she noted the absence of hands at the ends of the pony's limbs. This was going to be problematic.

"Okay, we'll have to rig something up so you can hit the keys with your hoofs without looking like you type with your elbows..." She grumbled, half to Twilight, half to herself. "Maybe if we taped pencils onto your hooves-"

"I'll use my telekinesis!"

"Your what?"

"Telekinesis. I can move objects with my magic," Twilight said, tapping her horn with her hoof. "I shouldn't have any trouble using it to press these keys."

"You have- okay. Yeah. Fine," Chisame said, waving her hand dismissively as if to shoo away the thoughts about how telekinesis wasn't really a thing. "Use that. Just type something into that box, and then hit the button using the mouse."

Twilight cocked her head to the side, and opened her mouth to ask a question. Before she managed to get any words out, Chisame interrupted with the answer.

"The mouse is that thing there." She pointed to it. "You use it to move around the cursor, which is that arrow on the screen. Move the mouse around to move the arrow, and then press the button on the mouse to select something."

"Okay." A purple glow surrounded the mouse, which began to slide back and forth across the mousepad. Chisame had to fight to keep her eye from twitching. "Okay, I see how it works now. What should I search for?" Twilight pensively tapped her hoof on the desk. "People view ponies a lot differently in this world, don't they?"

"You could say that..." Chisame grumbled, mentally noting that she was speaking the understatement of the century.

"Well, I want to be able to get along with everyone better, so I should probably look up something about what people think ponies are like here. Haruna mentioned that people get a lot of information from that thing where you can watch those different shows..."

"You mean a television?"

"Yeah, that!" Twilight clapped her hooves together excitedly. "I should look up something about what ponies are like in your television shows."

"Sure, go with that."

"Okay. Let's see, where's the 'P' on here..." She scanned the keyboard for a few moments before magically pressing down the key. "'O'...'N'..." She paused. "This layout sure isn't very intuitive. Wouldn't it make more sense to put them in alphabetical order, or maybe group them by ease of use?"

"Yeah, you'd think that. There's a reason why, but it's kinda stupid, and I don't want to waste your time explaining it now."

"...'O'...'W'." Twilight said as she finished pecking at the keys. She nodded with satisfaction at the words "pony show" sitting on the search bar. "All I have to do is click that 'Google search' button?"

"Yep."

"Here goes!" Twilight rubbed her hooves together in anticipation as she pressed the button. She frowned. Rather than anything interesting happening, another small box had appeared on the screen, containing a few sentences that were totally unrelated to what she had entered. "What's this thing?"

"Huh?" Chisame leaned in. "Oh, that's just my messaging program. You won't have to worry about that." She punched a few keys and the message vanished. "Okay, try it again."

"Here goes!" Twilight said again. Her smile widened as the images and links popped up. "What do I do now?

"Use the mouse to click on one of the links." Chisame pointed at one of the lines of text. "They're usually blue, like that. It'll take you to a website. Some of them are useful, some aren't. That Wikipedia one is usually pretty useful. Not exactly scholarly, but it's useful enough."

"Hmmm...interesting." Twilight furrowed her brow as she examined the screen. "What's this 'related searches' thing?"

"Oh, that's just Google telling you about stuff you can look up that's similar to what you searched for."

"Cool! Let's see how it works. I'm kinda curious what this 'Donkey Show' thing is. There aren't a lot of donkeys in Equestria."

"You do that," Chisame muttered. "I'm sure you'll find something- wait."

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head as she watched the cursor float over to the offending link and select it. The page began to load. Chisame lurched forward. No way was she going to be the one responsible for ruining the pony's innocence. Everyone would think she was a pervert if they found out about this. With an emphatic roar, she gave Twilight's chair a massive shove. It squealed loudly as it slid across the floor before coming to a stop just shy of the wall.

"W-what was that for?" Twilight sputtered in a voice partway between scared, angry, and confused.

"Forgot the most important rule about Google."

"What's that?"

"Any term, no matter how innocuous it sounds, can result in Very Bad Things coming up when you Google it."

"What things are you talking about?"

"You don't want to know." Chisame shook her head. She should have known that this was going to come up. "Let's just say that some people don't have much of a sense of decency when it comes to putting stuff on the Internet. You see that little box there?"

"The one that says 'safe search'?"

"Yes. Always always always make sure that has a check mark on it. It won't keep everything out, but it definitely helps. And just remember that the Internet is by no means representative of the human race as a whole, okay? Most of us have more class than that."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Twilight asked.

Chisame groaned. The unicorn had lost interest in her original goal in favor of pressing the issue of the last thing Chisame wanted to talk to her about. She should've known this was a bad idea. What she would give for something to change the topic of conversation-

Both Chisame and Twilight jumped in shock as a head popped in the door of Chisame's room. All Twilight knew was that it didn't belong to anyone that she was currently familiar with. Chisame, on the other hand, recognized the face. It went with the name that had popped up on her chat a few minutes earlier. Before either Chisame or Twilight could respond, Chao was already sitting on the couch.

"Listen, Chisame. I know you're rather reluctant to involve yourself in my plans, but I have a request to make of - what is that?"

She extended her index finger in Twilight's direction, trying her level best to hide any signs of surprise. Her effort succeeded, though due mostly to Chisame being too distracted by her sudden appearance to care much. Not that she didn't have to put forth an effort. Equine biology wasn't her strong point, but she could identify at least a dozen biological anomalies. Her eye twitched as some unwelcome words popped into her head. _Forget everything you know about equine biology._

"Oh, that's...uh... You know what? I have no idea." Chisame threw up her hands and flopped onto the couch. "If you want to know, you should probably ask Negi."

"I don't think that will be necessary." Chao shook her head, trying to focus on the reason that she had come in the first place.

"Is this one of your friends, Chisame?" Twilight asked, oblivious to Chisame's frustration.

"She's one of my classmates..." the girl mumbled. "I'll let her introduce herself."

"Lingshen Chao." She bowed slightly.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle. I know this is probably kinda weird, with me being a pony and everything. I'm not really sure how I ended up here either. Some weird magic thing. Negi and I have been working on figuring it out."

"Weird magic thing?" Chao said, raising a suspicious eyebrow. "Well, with Negi working on it, I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before you get it figured out." She turned back to Chisame. "I have a job for you."

"Awesome," Chisame grumbled, with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

* * *

><p>"Rainbow Dash, do we really have to keep watching all these movies about exploding things? It's very loud..."<p>

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash withdrew her head from the large plastic barrel of cheese balls. "What did you say?"

"I was just wondering if I could pick the next movie..." Fluttershy mumbled. "If that's okay...I mean, you got to pick the last few movies."

"Sure, I guess." Rainbow Dash answered with a shrug. "What do you want to watch? We got..." She shuffled through the pile of DVDs that Haruna had left on the couch. "We have.. _Die Hard, Die Hard II: Die Harder, Die Hard with a Vengeance-_"

"Um, are there any that aren't about dying?"

"Uh..._First Blood, Predator, Conan the Barbarian..._"

"Aren't there any that aren't so...violent?"

"Well, what did you have in mind?" Rainbow Dash shoved the movies back onto the stack.

"I was talking to Nodoka before about how I like animals and everything, so she brought a few movies back from the library that she thought I might like."

"Okay, we could watch one of those, I guess. I mean, I kinda have had the room to myself for a while."

"Okay!" Fluttershy perked up. "How about this one?" She pointed at the topmost case on the neat little stack of DVDs that Nodoka had left on the corner of the coffee table.

"_Dumbo_? That just sounds...awesome..." Rainbow Dash said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "Give it to me. I'll put it in."

She grasped the case between her hooves and hovered over to the massive entertainment system that Haruna had put together. How on earth a middle school student had managed to acquire such a complicated and expensive setup was a rather unanswerable question. Not that it ever crossed either of the ponies' minds, as circumstantial mystery was blotted out by the larger sense of wonder that such a thing even existed. The closest thing to the mass of wires and screens and blinking lights that Haruna had set up was the mass of wires and screens and blinking lights that Twilight left lying around the basement of the library.

The disc clicked awkwardly into place as Rainbow Dash somehow, against all odds, managed to transfer it from the case to player despite her lack of fingers.

"Okay, let's see if this thing is as stupid as the name makes it sound," she grumbled as she fluttered back to the sofa.

An hour later, the two ponies found themselves surrounded by piles of tear-soaked tissues. Rainbow Dash waved her forelegs in triumph, her eyes glued to the screen.

"That was AWESOME!"

* * *

><p>"Because we naturally can't have you mooching off of the administration, I've convinced the headmaster to allow you to work as campus security officers." Mana paced back and forth authoritatively in front of Chuck, Morgan, and Casey, who were standing more or less at attention. "Given that you have claim to have prior experience as government agents, I am assuming that you are in fact quite overqualified for this job, although in some cases..."she cast a suspicious eye in Morgan's direction, "...I am rather skeptical. As such, I intend to test your abilities."<p>

She brought her fist down on the table in front of her, where three handguns were neatly laid out.

"These will be your weapons. An M9 Beretta. I trust that you are all familiar with it." She picked up one of the guns and spun it around her finger before placing it back on the table. "What you probably aren't familiar with is this." She held up a single bullet. It looked fairly nondescript on first glance, but if one squinted at it, it would be possible to make out a pattern of finely carved lines across its surface. "This is a magical bullet. Entirely nonlethal. It has a binding spell embedded in it. Hit someone with this, and unless they've prepared the appropriate countermeasures they'll be effectively paralyzed. For the time being, these are the only weapons and ammunition you will be equipped with."

Casey groaned.

"Not satisfied?" Mana glared at him. She could tell that the task of standing at attention for a middle school girl was demanding more or less all of his composure.

"I prefer something with a little more kick."

"Well, if you stay on your best behavior maybe we can upgrade you to a USP. But for now, you get the Beretta. You probably won't need anything more anyway. But for now, let's see if you guys are really as professional as you claim. It's simple." She pointed at a human-shaped target pasted to a tree roughly 25 paces away. "Hit the target. Simple as that." She held up one of the guns and a clip of ammunition. "You're up first, big guy."

Casey grunted as he snatched the weapon out of her hand and shoved the clip into it. He sighed in exasperation before leveling the gun at the tree. All of the bullets were embedded in the head of the target before the first shell casings hit the ground.

"Did I pass?"

"With flying colors," Mana mumbled. She didn't want to admit it, but she was impressed. Maybe they really were spies after all.

Casey snorted and returned to his place, satisfied that he had proved his ability.

"You're next." Mana pointed at Chuck.

"Okay, let's do this." Chuck cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath. Sure, he had been to the shooting range plenty of times, but there was bit more at stake here. It probably would have helped if he was actually in the midst of a mission; he wouldn't have time to overthink it. Nothing would mess up his accuracy more than thinking about how important it was to be accurate. If someone else was shooting at you, you were thinking about their guns, not your own. Of course, as long as the trans-dimensional weirdness hadn't messed with his head too much, it might very well be a non-issue.

"Aim for the chest," Mana directed.

Chuck slowly raised the gun, and squinted along the barrel. He was still for a moment. Then he twitched. Mana could see his eyes cross for a second. As they straightened out, he squeezed the trigger. It was a bit slower than Casey, but much more precise. The cluster of holes in the heart of the target was so tight that it was more like one big hole.

"Whoo! Still got it."

"I suppose you pass as well," Mana said. She had been quietly hoping that her little test would have given her an excuse to get them off her hands. "Alright, next."

"Oh yeah, I got this." Morgan started to jog in place, throwing a few decidedly fakey looking punches. "Okay, gimme the gun." He grabbed the final firearm off the table and with a flick of his wrist, started spinning it around his finger. It looked appropriately badass for approximately a third of a second before it slipped off his finger and spun into the air, where Casey snatched it away.

"I'm going to assume that you fail the test," Casey said, "...seeing as you can't even manage basic gun safety."

"You assume correctly," Mana said, taking the gun from Casey. Morgan seemed to shrink a little bit as she glared at him. "For obvious reasons, I'm not giving you a weapon, even a nonlethal one. Casey, Chuck; I'll assign you two a security route. Nothing fancy, just your standard security presence. I'll give you a more detailed set of instructions this afternoon. Morgan..." She glared at him, trying to think of anything she could use to occupy him. "...You can monitor the closed circuit security cameras."

"Awesome," he said, resigned to his fate. "So I get to sit in front the screen. Great. Got plenty of experience doing that."

* * *

><p>Ako didn't do well when meeting new people. Makie knew that perfectly well, but it hadn't stopped her from simply showing up at the room with a girl Ako had never seen before, giving a hasty introduction, seating the mysterious girl on the couch and disappearing back into the hallway, and leaving Ako to take care of the rest.<p>

"Um...hello. I'm Ako Izumi." She bowed slightly and waited for a response. The black-haired girl raised her head for a moment and regarded Ako silently with her deep, violet eyes. She returned the bow, but the movement of her head was so slight that Ako wasn't entirely sure that she had bowed at all. The girl resumed her blank stare straight ahead, sitting unusually straight, her hands resting on her knees as if she was waiting for something else to happen.

"I don't think I got your name..." Ako continued, wishing that Makie would come back from wherever she had vanished to.

"Homura," the girl answered without even looking up.

"So what brings you to campus?" Ako figured that she didn't really have anything else to say. Might as well try to figure out what was going on. "Are you a friend of Makie's?"

"I am just visiting the campus," Homura said. "Your teacher determined that I would stay in this room for the time being."

"Oh...really? That seems rather sudden-"

"I'm back!"

Ako sighed in relief as Makie burst through the door, a bag of microwave popcorn clamped in her hands.

"I thought you might be hungry so I brought you a snack!" She dropped the popcorn on unceremoniously on Homura's lap. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Uh...sure..." She began to fumble with the bag, attempting to open it. Ako observed her quietly. It was almost like she was looking at a different person; most of the coldness in Homura's face had vanished, replaced with the giddy nervousness one would expect of a middle school girl in a new place meeting new people.

"What do you want to drink?" Makie asked, as she began rummaging through the mini-fridge. "Crap, we need to refill this. All that's left in here is Red Bull. Oh wait, there's a diet Coke in the back here." She held up the can. "Do you want it?"

"Uh, sure."

"Here you go." Makie tossed the can. Homura bobbled it for a few seconds before latching onto it. "So I guess we should figure out where you're going to sleep."

"I can just sleep on the couch..." Homura mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn.

"Nah, I can't make the visitor do that," Makie said. "I'll sleep on the couch and you can have my bed."

"Your bed!-?" Homura gasped and immediately began to cough, as she had come dangerously close to inhaling some of her snack. "I, uh, I wouldn't want you to have to give up your place or anything..."

"Nah, it's fine," Makie answered, with a wave of her hand. "Half the time I end up falling asleep on the couch anyway while I watch TV. And I'm flexible enough that it won't kill my back. Don't have any clean sheets for you at the moment, but I just changed them like 2 days ago, so they're pretty much clean. I'll get a clean set tomorrow. Is that okay?"

"S-sure..." Homura stuttered.

Ako tilted her head slightly as she observed Homura, who was now staring rather intently at the popcorn bag. Her composure had inexplicably been obliterated, and her face had a decidedly flushed look to it. Whether it was the result of the popcorn caught in her throat or the prospect of having to sleep in Makie's bed was anyone's guess. Ako suspected the former. She couldn't really see any reason why sleeping in somebody's bed would merit any reaction other than maybe a mild disgust if the person in question wasn't very hygienic. Unless Homura was...nah.

* * *

><p>Twilight stared blankly at the computer screen. Chisame had given her a brief list of pointers about surfing the web, sent her back to Negi's room, and told her to come back tomorrow. Apparently whatever that Chao girl needed was a more pressing matter. Not that it mattered. Negi had a computer as well, and all that Twilight really wanted to do was to spend some time absorbing information about humans. She had not been disappointed. Chisame's first piece of advice had been "Stick to Wikipedia until you learn a bit more about the Internet", and as things turned out, it was more than sufficient to keep her occupied.<p>

"Twilight, time for dinner!" Asuna called. The unicorn failed to respond. "Come on, I'm hungry, get over here." Still no response. The girl groaned, stood up, and looked over Twilight's shoulder. "List of _Power Rangers_ episodes?"

"Huh?" Twilight snapped back to reality.

"Look like your visit with Chisame went well. Now get over here and get some food before you turn into a geek like her. You can't spend all your time staring at that screen. What all did you do over there anyway?"

"Oh, not much," Twilight answered. "She showed me how to use the computer and search for stuff on the Internet. Nothing that you don't know already. I would have been over there longer, but she had other work to do, so I'm going to go over there again tomorrow."

"Shoulda figured. I bet she's working on that 'Net Idol' site of hers that she thinks I don't know about."

Twilight sighed in relief as she took her seat at the table. Chao had kindly requested that she not inform Negi of her visit, as she didn't want him to have to go through the trouble of yet another student finding out about what was going on. She already knew all about magic anyway. No point in forcing her teacher to go through the explanation when she was already in the loop. Besides, Negi was stretched thin enough as it was, dealing with all the random appearances while still trying to keep up with his teaching job. No reason to put anything else on his mind.

"What's a net idol?" She asked.

"Promise you won't tell Chisame that I told you?"

"Um, okay..."

"Well..." Asuna grinned evilly. "Chisame has this rather interesting hobby..."

* * *

><p>Chisame gently massaged her temples as she glared at the computer screen. After dealing with the technologically impaired unicorn, the last thing she wanted to do was go to the trouble of tracking down some troll's location. But still, the cash that Chao was promising would pay her web-hosting fees for the next decade or so, and the scientist had offered to toss in an entire bulk case of Goobers as an extra bonus. She reminded herself of how much she liked Goobers, and logged herself into Chao's account. Immediately, a box popped up.<p>

**jackassTranscendance messaged temporalJellyfish on May 25 at 6:38 PM.**

JT: Good luck.

**jackassTranscendance is offline at 6:39 PM.**

Chisame's eye twiched.

"Man, he really is a jackass."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Bleeeeaaaahhhh. Apologies for taking like a year to get this posted. I got laid low for a week by a stomach bug. -_- I think I got around to giving all the relevant characters some focus while moving the plot forward a bit, although I had originally planned to have a bit more. I'm going to try to introduce more ponies soon. Once I get the main MLP characters in there I'll have a bit more freedom to get things moving a little quicker. Still trying to come up with an ideal balance between character interaction and plot development.<p>

Obviously, the whole "chatlog" thing is something of an experiment on my part. Yes, the format is quite obviously thiefed from _Homestuck_. Doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be inserting any _Homestuck _characters, though; I don't have any plans to do that at the moment.

And for the record, the quote that Twilight finds in her book was said by Rene Char.

Anyway, thanks for reading thus far. Reviews are always welcome.


	8. Contact

**Chapter 8: Contact**

"RRRGGHHHHHH!" Chisame's hands shook as she resisted the urge to tear out handfuls of hair, instead slamming them down on her desk. "Why isn't anything working!-? No IP address, no digital trail, no other record that this idiot even exists anywhere on the entire Internet! It's not even possible! There has to be something somewhere!"

She slumped in her chair. The outburst had burned through what little energy she had left. Fortunately, on the corner of her desk sat a half-empty twelve-pack of Red Bull. Sure, after half a dozen of them, the jitters made it a bit tough to type anything, but it beat falling asleep. The only real downside was that they didn't taste all that great, a downside that was rather exacerbated by the fact that they weren't really cold any more. Chisame sighed, mentally berating herself for not putting the cans in the mini-fridge. Her bumbling attempt to open the can was interrupted by the a loud beep from the computer.

**temporalJellyfish messaged eternalSeptember on May 27 at 3:47 AM.**

TJ: How goes the tracking?

TJ: I presume you have made some progress since I last checked on you?

ES: You presume wrong.

ES: Completely wrong. -_-

TJ: Have you found anything?

ES: Take a wild guess.

TJ: Are you serious, Chisame?

TJ: I thought that you were the best.

ES: Oh shut up. :[

ES: I am the best, dammit.

ES: It's not a total loss.

ES: The stuff I didn't find is pretty important.

ES: It's obviously not what I'm looking for.

ES: But it still tells me something.

ES: Like it's pretty telling where all the holes are.

ES: You of all people should have some vague idea of what I'm talking about.

ES: Being all sciencey and smart and whatever.

TJ: Of course.

TJ: It's a bit like the concept of negative space.

TJ: I admit that the arts are hardly my strong point

TJ: But the idea of defining an object based on absence rather than presence is quite intriguing.

TJ: It reminds me a bit of deriving the trajectories of mana particles.

ES: Shut up already.

ES: You know I don't give a crap.

TJ: My, my, aren't you cranky?

ES: It's four in the freaking morning

ES: And I have Red Bull running through my viens

ES: Because I've been spending all freaking night

ES: Tracking this ass that you weren't able to.

TJ: You misspelled veins.

TJ: The "I before E" rule apparently doesn't count here.

TJ: English sure is a quirky language.

ES: I don't give a rat's ass! :(

TJ: You sure are cantankerous when you're tired.

ES: I'm only awake because you're paying me to be awake.

ES: Why the hell are you awake now anyway?

ES: No way that you decided to bother me now just for a status update.

TJ: I couldn't sleep, and I had an idea that might make this whole thing move faster.

TJ: But first inform me of what you've found.

TJ: Or haven't found, as the case may be.

ES: Fine.

ES: This "jackassTrancendance" person is a total non-entity on the internet.

ES: No email, no IP, no other accounts anywhere.

ES: No traces of him anywhere.

ES: And that shouldn't be possible.

ES: Any time you do anything on the internet you leave stuff behind.

ES: But this guy has nothing.

ES: Nothing links to him.

ES: So either he literally doesn't do anything on the internet except bother you.

ES: Or else he's very very good.

ES: As in, he's at my level.

ES: If I were a professional.

TJ: Wow, so you admit that he is better than you?

ES: No.

ES: He's just more experienced.

ES: And connected, I'd guess.

ES: His chat account is a dead end.

ES: And I'm guessing that it's because he's connected.

ES: He's stopping the account from linking to any of his other online activities.

ES: If I could hack into the chat server I could access his information.

ES: That would take forever though. Major company and all.

TJ: Then I guess it's good that I thought of a possible shortcut.

ES: What is it?

TJ: I will tell you tomorrow when I get the details ironed out.

TJ: I will meet you in your room tomorrow after class.

TJ: Right now I have some arrangements to make.

ES: What, I don't even get a hint?

TJ: Nope.

ES: :[

TJ: Get some sleep. You can get back to work tomorrow.

TJ: Ciao!

ES: You can be a real bitch.

ES: You know that, right?

** temporalJellyfish is offline at 4:04 AM.**

ES: Dammit.

Chisame's eye was twitching so hard from the combination of frustration and caffeine jitters that she could hardly see. Whatever it was that Chao was up to, it was an excuse to stop wasting her time accomplishing absolutely nothing. She slammed the laptop shut and crawled into bed. Maybe she could get enough sleep in that she wouldn't nod off in class again.

* * *

><p>Homura couldn't sleep. She could blame any number of things for that; the stress of being thrust into a new world, unpleasant memories forcing their way to the surface of her thoughts, Makie's squeaky snoring...but she knew that that wasn't the case. It was the smell. It lingered on the sheets, the pillow, hung in the air. It wasn't a bad scent by any means. Just the opposite, in fact; there was something light about it, something that made her jittery and energetic. Even after Ako had brought a new set of clean sheets in, the scent still lingered. Every time Homura inhaled, she could feel her heartbeat pick up a little.<p>

She needed something else to focus on. Her hand rose to her chest and slipped inside her shirt. Her fingers wrapped around the gem that dangled around her neck. The light from the digital clock on the far wall bounced off of it and shattered, glittering softly in the darkness. The gem itself was a cool violet, the size and shape of an egg, wrapped with golden bands. Even in the dark, she could tell that it was flawless, totally clear and smooth. She cupped her hands around it, blocking out the light that shimmered off of it. Without the illumination, the gem was all but invisible. Her eyelids began to droop as she stared at the stone, wondering why it was so dark and whether she should be afraid or relieved as a result. She was still debating the matter in her head when her fatigue finally won out.

* * *

><p>Twilight cocked her head as she perused the massive stack of flash cards on the end table next to Yue's bed.<p>

"So you're studying these because in this world, magic tightly linked with language?"

"My knowledge of the exact mechanics of the magic are limited, but I believe that's the case," Yue answered as she picked up a handful of cards and began to shuffle them. "I've also been told that the potency of the spells is increased if one uses more archaic language, hence why I'm studying this rather than Latin. I have no idea why things work that way; you would be much better off getting that sort of information from Negi. I'm really quite an amateur as far as magic goes."

"I've been meaning to discuss it with him, but he's been pretty busy lately." Twilight said. "Trying to find out what's going on and find places for everyone who ended up here. I've been trying to do research about it, but I'm only really familiar with how pony magic works. Your world's magic is a bit different, and I haven't quite figured out how pony magic interacts with it."

"Okay, how about this one?" Nodoka took advantage of Twilight's pause to hold up a card.

"Umm..." Yue furrowed her eyebrows, as if focusing harder on the letters on the card would somehow help her comprehend the meaning. "Wind?"

"No. Sorry." Nodoka flipped the card around for Yue to see.

"Ugh." Yue flopped back onto the bed. "I can't concentrate like this!"

"I'm not bothering you, am I?" Twilight asked.

"You're fine," Yue muttered. "It's that that's making it difficult." She pointed at the television. Explosions filled the screen, and the volume was so high that it rattled against the shelf it sat on. Rainbow Dash sprawled across the couch, munching loudly and messily on a Twinkie. Fluttershy was curled up in a ball at the end of the couch, flipping through a stack of animal-themed picture books that Nodoka had retrieved from the library.

"Rainbow Dash, can you make that a little quieter?" Twilight had to half-yell over the sound of the movie.

"Fine, fine..." Rainbow mumbled through a mouthful of junk food. She fumbled awkwardly with the remote, poking at the buttons with her hooves. The television went completely silent, and the explosions disappeared, replaced with a blank blue glow. "Aw crap. What button was that?" She jabbed at the remote again, knocking it off the sofa. "Dangit." She leaned over. "Crud, it rolled under." She leaned further, pawing around under the edge of the couch with her foreleg. "Whoa!" Rainbow screeched as she tumbled over the edge, landing on her head with a thud. "...Ow."

"Are you alright?" Fluttershy poked nervously at Rainbow Dash's prone form.

"I'm fine," Rainbow groaned. "Ugh, my head..."

"Maybe you should lay off the movies for a little while," Nodoka said softly. "I mean, you've been watching them almost nonstop for the past few days after all."

"I agree," Fluttershy said, in an equally low voice. "I did like some of the movies that Nodoka brought for us, but all of your explodey things are starting to give me a headache."

"What are we supposed to do then?" Rainbow Dash grumbled as she righted herself.

"Maybe we could play a game," Nodoka offered.

"What, like those things Haruna was playing?" Rainbow Dash lifted her forelegs and wagged them to emphasize her lack of digits. "That could be a problem. I bet Twilight could manage it, but I don't think I'm up to it."

"I'm quite sure that she means like a board game or something of that nature," Yue answered. "Monopoly, perhaps?"

"How do you play that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Well, it's based around basic economic concepts-"

"Booooorriiinnngggg!" the blue pegasus interrupted.

"I think it actually sounds sort of interesting," Fluttershy said.

"Oh come on. Economics? Bleaagghhh." Rainbow Dash made a mock gagging noise. "Don't you have anything cooler?"

"I suppose you could play Risk..." Yue said with sigh. "That was based off of strategic warfare-"

"Okay, now that sounds awesome!" Rainbow Dash rubbed her hooves together in anticipation. "How do you play? Do we shoot stuff at each other?"

"Actually, the outcomes of each conflict are determined statistically via dice rolling," Yue said, assuming her exposition mode. "The players must attempt to maneuver themselves into favorable position."

"That sounds...kinda boring."

"It can actually be rather interesting," Yue continued. "Especially if one examines the long term effects of one's early actions over the entirety of the game."

"How about we don't do that?"

"I think it sounds sort of interesting," Twilight said.

"I don't think so," Rainbow Dash grumbled.

"Um, I have an idea..." Nodoka raised a hand. "How about this?" She held a up a bright red box. Twilight arched her neck forward to get a look at the words written across it.

"Apples to Apples? Huh..." The unicorn's ears drooped a little.

"Are you okay, Twilight?" Nodoka asked, noting Twilight's sudden dejection.

"Yeah, it just reminded me of one of my friends from back home."

"I'm kinda surprised that she didn't bust through the wall or something when you pulled that out," Rainbow Dash said. "Wouldn't surprise me if Applejack already has that game, though."

"Applejack?" Yue raised an eyebrow in confusion. "You have a friend named after a cereal?"

"Huh? Applejack isn't a grain." It was Rainbow Dash's turn to be confused. "What does a cereal have to do with anything?"

"Well, there's this breakfast cereal called 'Apple Jacks'..." Nodoka began to explain. "It's known for the – actually, that's not really important. Why don't you tell me more about your friend?"

"Of course," Fluttershy said with a nod. "Applejack's family owns a big farm. They grow a couple of different things, but mostly they grow apples. She's a very hard worker; she and her brother do almost all the work on the farm themselves."

"Yeah, I'm not sure how they do it," Twilight added. "Especially when they have to take care of Granny Smith and Apple Bloom." She glanced pensively into the air. "I wonder if the rest of our friends showed up here too. They were right there when the whole...thing happened. I hope they're okay."

"I'm sure they're fine," Fluttershy said, putting a reassuring hoof on Twilight's shoulder.

"Yeah! Applejack is tough. She can take care of herself." Rainbow Dash leaned back on the couch, folding her forelegs. "Pinkie Pie is probably okay too. She's...Pinkie. If she's around, she probably pulled a cake out of her hair and started a party or something. Rarity, she might be in trouble."

"Rarity is probably okay," Fluttershy offered. "She was okay when she was kidnapped by those dog things."

"I didn't mean _trouble_ trouble." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "I mean that she probably freaked out because she landed in a tree and ruined her mane or something with no way to fix it up."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Twilight sighed. "I just wish I knew where they were or what they were doing." She looked wistfully into space for a moment before rapidly shaking her head. "Well, no use dwelling on that." She turned back to Nodoka. "Why don't you know us how to play that game? Then when we finally get all this figured out we can teach Applejack how to play it."

"Okay!" Nodoka smiled as she carried the box to the table. "See, everybody gets seven red cards-"

A loud knock on the door interrupted her. Yue started to get up to open it, but it opened on its own, and Chao's head popped through the gap. She grinned.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?"

"Well, you kind of are..." Yue grumbled as she returned to her seat on the sofa.

"Sorry about that," she said, smiling in a way that indicated she really wasn't. "I just need to borrow Twilight for a few minutes. Do you mind? I promise that it'll be worth her while. It won't take long."

"I suppose I could come along," Twilight answered. "You can start the game without me. I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out when I come back."

"Excellent." Chao rubbed her hands together. "Well, you'd better come along, then. I'd hate to waste more of your time than I have to."

* * *

><p>"Will you get the hell out of my room already?" Chisame glared at the ermine that lounged on her sofa, a comically large pipe in his mouth. "Or at least get rid of that thing? This is a no-smoking dorm, and I don't want to get in trouble over it."<p>

"Nah, this is just a bubble pipe," Chamo said, puffing a few bubbles into the air. "I'm only in here because that Chao girl told me to meet her here."

"Oh joy, the talking weasel is in on this big plan of hers," Chisame grumbled. "This is going to be a winner."

"Give me a break, neesan!" Chamo said. "Just because I'm a talking ermine doesn't mean that I can't help you out."

"It has nothing to do with the fact that you're an animal, and everything to do with the fact that you were rummaging around in my underwear drawer. At least Twilight has some sense of decency."

"You really do have some fancy stuff in there." Chamo wiggled his eyebrows. "Never would have pegged you as the type to have something that frilly, and I'm usually pretty good at figuring that out."

"I swear if you weren't Negi's pet I'd throw you out a window."

"I'm here!" Chao burst through the door, Twilight in tow. "And I brought Twilight along. Let's get this show on the road. Now, Chisame, you've been having trouble tracking down information on our mystery subject, correct?"

"Of course. What are you going to do to help me?"

"Well, I figured that you could use something of a...let's call it a power boost. You're still pretty new to the magic thing, so I'm assuming that you aren't familiar with the magical contract that's known as a Pactio."

"Nope, I have no idea what that is," Chisame deadpanned. "Please enlighten me."

"Well, long story short, a mundane can make a contract with a mage, and they get a power boost; and if the mage is powerful enough, they get a magical artifact that grants them special powers. Those powers are usually dependent on the personality of the person in the contract. Because of this, I think it's highly probable that if you make a pactio, you'll receive something that will allow you to hack a lot more effectively."

"Really?" Chisame narrowed her eyes at Chao, trying to hide a spark of genuine interest under a veneer of skepticism.

"Of course." Chao threw an arm around Chisame's shoulders. "Think about it. Your already formidable skills supplemented by magic. It would be spectacular!"

"I see your point," Chisame answered, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. "But what's the price of this setup? Do I lose seven years of my life or get turned into a monster or something when I run out of power?"

"No, no. I wouldn't ask you to do something like that for such trivial purposes. It's not like I'm asking you to sell your soul or anything. Several of your classmates have already placed themselves in these contracts with your teacher."

"Really?"

"Yes. You can ask any of them about it. There's no real downside to the procedure."

"So, saying that, theoretically, I was willing to do this. What mage am I going to make a contract with? Negi? I had thought you wanted to keep him out of this."

"That's exactly why I brought our dear unicorn friend along." Chao thrust a finger at Twilight. "You can make a pactio with her!"

"Me!-?" Twilight blurted. "I'm not familiar enough with how magic works here to do something like that."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Chao said, releasing Chisame. "Believe it or not, the only thing required for a pactio is someone with sufficient magical power, and someone to make the pactio circle. Chamo here is a specialist in drawing the circles, and you have such an impressive amount of magical energy that Chisame is guaranteed to get an artifact out of the deal. The process works with any kind of magic, so the fact that you're a unicorn shouldn't be a problem. Besides..." Now she put an arm around Twilight. "This is a great chance for you to learn about our form of magic. What better way to learn it than to experience it firsthand?"

"I suppose that would be quite interesting..." Twilight said. "As long as you're sure that it'll work..."

"The worst case scenario is that the circle just won't do anything," Chao said with a shrug. "Even if it fails, it's not going to do anything to you."

"Are you sure?" Chisame narrowed her eyes. "I don't want to explode or anything."

"I assure you, it's perfectly safe," Chao said, rolling her eyes. "Listen, as long as you even attempt it, I'll give you an entire wholesale-size box of Reese's Pieces. You'll get it even if the pactio doesn't work. There's no downside here, Chisame. You stand to gain magic powers, and lose nothing. You should at least give it a try."

"Fine, fine, I'll give it a shot!"

"Good!" Chao clapped her hands. As if on cue, Chamo leaped off the couch and scurried back and forth across the floor, dragging a chunk of chalk along behind him.

"So, uh, what exactly do we have to do to make this work?" Twilight asked. "Is it complicated?"

"There are only two steps," Chao answered. "The first is to stand in the circle." She pointed at the complex pattern of runes that Chamo had somehow already completed.

"Okay..." Chisame stepped into the circle, followed by Twilight. "Now what?"

"It's easy!" Chamo gave the Chisame and Twilight a thumbs up. "All you have to do is kiss!"

"Well, at least it's not – wait. WHAT?" Chisame spun around and grabbed Chao's shoulders and began to shake her. "What the hell are you trying to pull? I don't care if it gives me magical powers, I'm not going to kiss a horse!" She looked back over her shoulder at Twilight. "No offense."

"None taken," the unicorn answered. "That would be rather awkward."

"Please, Chisame, I thought you were more rational than this!" Chao broke free of Chisame's grasp. "Step back and look at the big picture for a moment. Yeah, kissing her will be kind of awkward, but the magical artifact that you'll receive as a result will more than make up for any of the embarrassment. The awkwardness is only temporary."

"I'd prefer to keep my dignity, thank you," Chisame snorted. "I have no idea why you thought I'd actually go through with this."

"I figured you'd be more logical," Chao said, shrugging. "By any measure, it's a small price to pay for the advantages it offers. I hate to say it, but you're kinda being an idiot."

"You're not the one who has to kiss a horse!"

"Now that's just unfair. I realize that the two of you aren't the same species, but there's no reason to make a big deal out of it. We're all mature enough to realize that it's obviously not romantic. I'm not going to assume that you're a furry or something just because of this."

"What's a furry?" Twilight asked.

"You don't want to know. Trust me," Chisame grumbled. "And I get it. It's just weird, you know? You could have actually told me everything that this would entail?"

"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd reject the idea without giving it a second thought," Chao said. "I won't lie, I waited to tell you so I could put more pressure on you. It's much easier to get you to see how immature you're being when I'm here in person. For instance, I'm assuming that Twilight would be more than willing to go through with it. Isn't that right, Twilight?"

"Well, it is a bit odd for magic to require something like that to work, but if it would help Chisame out and help me understand how this world's magic works a bit better I don't see why not."

"See? If the purple magic unicorn pony is mature enough to do it, why not you?"

"It's just – I – FINE I'LL DO IT!" Chisame clawed at the air, trying to think of something tangible that she could turn her frustration towards.

"Excellent. Then let's proceed, shall we? No point in dragging out your misery, after all." Chao patted Chisame on the shoulder.

Chisame grimaced and stepped back into the circle. Twilight was already sitting there, eyes closed, head held forward a bit, lips slightly pursed, waiting. Chisame forced herself to kneel, putting her face level with the unicorn's. Her eyes clamped shut, and she tried to imagine that she was about to kiss a really handsome boy. But there would be fur. It had to be a guy with a mustache and beard then. Who was a handsome guy with a mustache and beard? She stuck her lips out and slowly forced herself to move her head forward. Every inch was a battle. She couldn't tell how much space separated the pony's mouth from her own. She froze. It was too risky. She could feel Twilight's breath on her cheeks. The promise of magical powers seemed empty now. It was impossible. She couldn't do it.

"Oh, for goodness' sake!"

The next thing she felt was a hand grabbing the back of her head and shoving her forward. Something warm, fuzzy and slightly moist pressed against her mouth. Even though her eyes were closed, she could see a brilliant flash of light. Then she heard a voice that sounded not unlike a Latin American soccer commentator with a slight Boston accent.

"!"

The hand released Chisame's head, and she immediately scuttled backward. She opened her eyes to see Twilight, who was blushing so hard that it showed through her fur. Chisame turned to Chao, who was whistling quietly, hands in her pockets, staring into space as if she were oblivious to what had just happened.

"What the hell are you doing!-?" Chisame screeched.

"You were taking too long," Chao answered. "I just helped it along."

"You miserable-"

"Oh please, you should be thanking me! Why don't you talk to the ermine. He's got your magical artifact."

"Screw the magical artifact! I need mouthwash!" Chisame barged past Chao into the bathroom. As she rummaged around in the cupboard under the sink, her head began to clear a little. She hadn't really thought too hard about what kind of aftertaste she'd be left with after kissing a pony. There had been a vague expectation that it would taste not unlike the smell of a barnyard, but that wasn't the case. It wasn't at all horse-like. In fact, it had almost tasted a little sweet.

Chisame stood up, turned on the faucet, splashed the cold water on her face, and smacked herself on the cheek. Anything to stop herself from dwelling on what the kiss had tasted like. She all but tore the cap off of the mouthwash bottle, and took an enormous swig. Never before had she been so happy to feel her gums burn. She rinsed her mouth out a few more times before emerging. Twilight was sitting on the couch, fumbling absentmindedly with one of the pillows. Chamo sat on the other end of the couch, puffing on his bubble pipe. Chao was nowhere to be seen.

"Um, hello." Twilight chuckled awkwardly. "That was...uh..."

"Don't wanna hear it," Chisame said. "It was weird, and I don't want to talk about it. We never speak of this again, understand? I have nothing against you, and you can keep coming over here, but you never bring this up. Tell no one."

"Okay," Twilight said with a nod. "So, do you still need me for anything, or can I..." Her voice trailed off as she indicated the door.

"Nah, you can get out of here," Chamo answered. "I'll explain the pactio stuff to you later. Right now I gotta tell Chisame how her artifact works. Chao had some other stuff to attend to, so she had to run. I'll catch you later back in Negi's room."

* * *

><p>Morgan finished off yet another cup of coffee. He began to pour himself another, but stopped halfway as he realized that the pot was empty except for a lukewarm quarter-cup or so at the bottom. It dribbled into his mug, and he shoved the pot back into the coffee machine. He began to spin his chair away from it, noticed the "He who kills it fills it" post it stuck to the side, and spun back towards it. Mana had told him that the can of coffee and the filters were in one of the cabinets. He had no idea which one, so he picked one at random and began to rummage through it, mumbling to himself.<p>

"Man, this is so boring! At least you guys get to be out and about. I'm just stuck here staring at a bunch of screens."

"Oh, shut it, Grimes," Casey's voice crackled out of the speaker. "You've stayed in the van on enough missions that you should be used to this sort of thing."

"Well...yeah..." Morgan grumbled. He began to measure out a spoonful of coffee grounds, shrugged, and poured a roughly equivalent amount into the machine. "But at least those were, you know, actual missions. Not just sitting here watching a dozen different cameras. None of them are even pointed at anything interesting." He punched the ON button on the Mr. Coffee and swung his chair around so that he was facing the screens he was supposed to be watching.

"Come on, Morgan, it can't be that bad." This time it was Chuck's voice that came over the speaker.

"You don't have to listen to nonstop yammering during the whole time," Casey grunted.

"At least you get to explore the place a bit. I'm stuck with these screens. I can't even see you on any of them. Where are you guys anyway?"

"Uh..." Morgan could hear crinkling paper as Chuck unfolded the map. "We are...here."

"I can't see the map, Chuck," Morgan said.

"We're standing in the plaza in front of that giant tree. The World Tree. That." There was even more rustling, probably Chuck attempting to refold the map. "Is there a camera around?"

"Let me check." Morgan ran his finger down the list of security cameras that was taped to the side of main monitor. "Let's see, train station, sports complex, food court, here we go, World Tree Plaza. Camera #6. Where are you guys?"

"Uh, we're at the bottom of the stairs, just a sec." Morgan turned to the bank of screens, specifically the one with the #6 post-it note in the corner. It showed a wide, oddly-angled view of the now-empty plaza and the surrounding balconies and walkways with the World Tree just barely visible in the top corner. At the bottom of the screen, two small figures were proceeding up the massive stairway that led into the plaza. Despite the monochrome feed and lousy resolution, Morgan recognized the figures instantly. No amount of pixelation could prevent Casey's jawline from being distinct.

"Alright, I see you!" Morgan chuckled as he saw one of the figures, the non-Casey one, wave at him. "How much longer are you guys on patrol anyway? I'm tired, and it's what..." He looked at his watch. "Whoa, two fifty-four in the freaking morning! How the heck did we get roped into this?"

"Because if we don't work security, we get charged for housing," Casey barked. "We have no idea how we got here, and all of our CIA and NSA contacts seem to have disappeared. Working private security while we get this mess figured out is just about the best thing we could be doing at the moment."

"And our shift is up at four," Chuck added. "You can make it another hour, Morgan. Remember our all-night Quake marathons? This should be easy."

"Right, because looking at a screen with precisely nothing happening on it is just as interesting. Instead of blowing stuff up, all I have on these monitors are things like the plaza, soccer field, clock tower, the bridge, giant mechanical scorpion, some random stree- GIANT MECHANICAL SCORPION! HOLY CRAP!"

"Morgan, what are you talking about?" Chuck asked, the confusion in his voice evident.

"There's this giant scorpion robot thing! It's like right by the- the, uh..." He looked back to the security camera list. "Right by the train station!"

"Grimes, you call that girl and tell her something's up." Morgan could detect a slight hint of excitement in Casey's growl. Go figure. "We'll get down there and see what the heck is going on."

Morgan snatched up the headset and began poking at the intercom buttons, hoping that he remembered the number for Mana's room correctly. He sighed in relief as he heard her voice on the other end of the line.

"Mana Tatsumiya. What is it?"

"Giant hostile robot scorpion!"

"What?"

"A big robot scorpion spider thing has appeared near the train station. Requesting backup!"

"Fine, fine," she sighed. Even though Morgan couldn't see her, he could tell that she was likely rolling her eyes at him. "I'll be there shortly. This had better not be a false alarm."

"Don't worry, it isn-"

She had already hung up on him.

* * *

><p>Homura shuffled along the unfamiliar sidewalks, hands in pockets. The air was a bit cooler than she would have liked, but at least it was clear. She had lain in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, staring at the wall, staring at that gem that she had hanging around her neck. But she could only distract herself for so long. It was the scent. Or rather, it was the litany of memories that the scent triggered in her brain. She both loved and hated those memories, and the sheer amount of mental energy she was forced to expend just to figure out how she felt about her own thoughts was starting to give her a headache. Eventually she'd have to learn to ignore the smell, but for the moment getting out of the room sufficed to clear her mind.<p>

The campus was even larger than she had realized. Granted, she was no stranger to wandering labyrinthine streets and alleys; before being inexplicably swallowed by the darkness it hadn't been uncommon for her to spend her evenings and nights alone in the city. For that reason, despite the fact that she had barely any idea where she was or where she was going, she felt no fear. At least, no fear of anything or anyone that she might meet. A mild apprehension was gnawing at her gut, but that was all.

She turned a corner and found herself in the wide open courtyard in front of the World Tree. Its branches glowed dimly in the darkness. Homura took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, leaning against the railing. This place was so different from her home city. Everything there was glass and steel; the only old buildings were the factories. But here, everything was cobblestone and vaguely medieval architecture interspersed with patches of grass. She tried to think back to the days before her lonely city life, but she couldn't recall having ever seen anything like this place. How long had it been since she had been able to just sit and absorb the world around her...?

Suddenly a loud stomping sound split the silence. She spun around to see two men hurrying towards her. One of them was a bit older, and had a square jaw. The other one was younger and a good deal more nondescript. Both of them looked agitated and were dressed in semi-official security style.

The older one whipped a security badge out of his pocket.

"It's past curfew. You need to get back to your room."

She sighed. Just when she had finally gotten away from it all... Then from out in the distance, there was a rather loud crunching sound, something like a car slamming into a brick wall.

"What was that?" she asked. As soon as the words left her mouth she realized that she probably should have sounded more worried, but the two men didn't seem to be paying attention.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," said the younger man. "Just some...construction. They wanted to get the work done at night so that it wouldn't get in everyone's way. But yeah, you should probably get back to the dorm now. It's not safe out here at night."

Homura resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She was quite sure that she could put up a fight with pretty much anything that might show up, and it was fairly obvious that the guy had made the "construction" thing up off the top of his head, but the last thing she wanted to do was get in an argument. She had spent most of the day fighting her own brain; no point in fighting with somebody else. And getting on the bad side of some security guards wasn't the best way to make a good impression on the people who ran this place.

"Okay." She made an effort to sound as meek as possible. A year ago or two ago it would have been trivially easy. Then again, a year or two ago she never would have ventured outside of her home by herself. She bowed respectfully to the two men and ambled back in the general direction of the dorms. As soon as she was out of their view, she ducked pressed herself against one of the walls and listened. There was definitely something odd going on. At worst, it would be something boring, and as soon as the security guys had left, she could resume her contemplations. It had been too long since she had had the time to think.

* * *

><p>"That was close." Chuck breathed a sigh of relief.<p>

"Yeah, the last thing we want is for someone to get injured on our first night on duty," Casey answered. "I wish we had some sort of more powerful ordinance. If we actually had weapons that did something, maybe we could take care of this ourselves rather than having to call for backup."

"Well, the guns Mana gave us aren't totally useless. They did stop that thing from moving. It took a couple of shots, but at least it isn't rampaging around."

Casey grunted in reluctant affirmation.

"I suppose they aren't completely worthless, but I'd have preferred a grenade launcher. This is only a temporary solution. Those magic bullet things can't last forever. Taking it down wouldn't have been much of an issue if we had some actual firepower."

"What, have you fought a giant robot like that before or something?" Chuck stared incredulously at his partner. "I mean, really?"

"Well, not this exact model obviously, but there was this prototype tank-"

An enormous crunch sounded from down the road, followed by a series of only slightly quieter smashes.

"Ah crap," Casey grunted as he drew his gun. "Should known those magic bullets weren't going to stop it." He strode resolutely towards the plaza staircase, in the direction of the noise.

"What the heck are you doing?" Chuck shouted at Casey's back. "The magic bullets only held it for a few minutes!"

"I'll figure something out," Casey answered with a shrug. "Beats having this thing rampaging around the campus. Maybe the Intersect will kick in and you can hotwire it or something."

"I really doubt that the CIA database has any information about giant robots."

"You never know," Casey sniffed. "I wouldn't have expected salsa dancing to be in there either."

"Fine, fine. I just hope that those reinforcements show up. We're almost out of ammo."

"Doesn't look like we have much of a choice." Casey nodded in the direction of the stomping, which was now even louder. The reason for the loudness was that the scorpion was already halfway up the stairs, and would be in the plaza in a matter of seconds.

Chuck swallowed hard as he got his first good look at the thing in the glow of the plaza's light posts. It stood about twenty feet high, give or take, and was just as long if not longer. In fact, if one counted the rather massive tail, it was almost half as long as it was tall. Six massive legs protruded from its body, which shone a dull orangey-red. Rather than pincers, it held out two disturbingly large machine gun turrets.

He took aim at one of the scorpion's legs. At the moment, his gun contained a mere three bullets. If he wanted to stop the rampage, he couldn't spare any of them. His eyes narrowed as he lined up his shots. A flurry of images flashed in front of his eyes, and everything seemed to shift into slow motion. He popped off three shots, one at each leg.

The bullets sparked as they struck the machine. The sparks exploded into a ball of light. As it faded, a disjointed circle of glowing runes was etched into the metallic service. The joints clicked uselessly as they tried to move, held still by the runes. The scorpion slowly dragged itself forward with it's other three legs, the frozen limbs screeching shrilly against the cobblestone.

"Well?" Chuck turned to Casey. "Are you going to shoot it, or what?"

"Nah. I only have two shots left, and I want to save them for if it breaks free again."

"Makes sense. I guess it can't really do much if it's stuck like..." His voice trailed off as the air was filled with a loud whirring. "What's that sound?"

"Gatling gun," Casey answered. He pointed at the two large guns mounted atop the scorpion. "We should probably run."

"Yeah..."

Both men spun around and sprinted towards a nearby alleyway. Just as they turned the corner, the ground where they had been standing moments earlier was torn up by gunfire. And the sounds of the machine dragging itself grew steadily nearer. The two men retreated further down the alley. The front end of the scorpion turned the corner and stopped, unable to fit between the buildings. The guns mounted on its back were still whirring.

"See, this is where a grenade launcher would have come in handy," Casey grumbled, half to himself. He raised his gun. If he wanted to avoid being turned into Swiss cheese, he had to freeze both the turrets. He was a half-second away from squeezing the trigger when he heard a very familiar sound. "Whoa!" He threw himself to the side as a rocket blasted past from behind him. The explosion hit him like a punch to the chest as the rocket landed right between the machine guns.

Casey and Chuck spun around to see Homura standing still as a statue, a smoking RPG launcher on her shoulder. She smiled slightly as she lowered the weapon.

"I personally prefer a rocket propelled grenade."

"Wha- where did you get that!-?" Chuck babbled.

"I just happened to have it on hand."

"See, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about," Casey said with a smirk. "You really did a number on that thing." He nodded in the direction of the scorpion, which was reeling from the explosion.

"Uh, I don't think it's dead yet," Chuck said.

The joints released a metallic squeak as the metal creature raised its tail into striking position, and then it was still. Casey raised his gun once again and waited. For a long moment, the only movement in the alley was the smoke drifting away from the remnants of the explosion. Then Casey sighed, and blasted his last two shots into the foe.

"What did you do that for?" Chuck asked. "It wasn't doing anything. I thought you wanted to save your ammo!"

"It's obviously preparing for something," Casey said, shrugging again. "It's so badly damaged now that it probably won't be able to break free."

As he finished speaking, there was a flash of light, and the tip of the scorpion's upraised tail began to glow.

"That's...probably a bad sign," Chuck mumbled. "We should get out of-"

A gust of air blew past him as Setsuna flew past him, wings extended, sword in hand. Light glinted off of the blade. There was a metallic clang as she whipped past the scorpion. Everything was still for a moment before the tail suddenly fell with a clank, no longer connected to the body. From above, on one of the buildings, was a nearly silent pop. Suddenly the entire machine was covered with enormous runic circles. They were the same type as the ones that Chuck and Casey's guns were loaded with, but they were much larger and even more complex; they covered nearly the entirely of the robot's body, freezing it entirely.

Setsuna glided slowly into the alley, landing in front of the trio. A moment later, Mana dropped down beside her from one of the buildings, a sniper rifle slung over her shoulder. She glanced at the damaged and now magically bound remnants of the robot, and then to Homura, who still held the rocket launcher. Mana's eyes narrowed.

"Who are you, and where the hell did you get that?"

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Eaugh, I had planned to go further than this in the story, but it got too long. The characters I was going to introduce will have to wait until next time.<p>

The robot that Casey and Chuck (and Homura) are fighting is the Guard Scorpion from Final Fantasy VII.

And yes, Chisame made a pactio with Twilight. I needed her to make a pactio with someone, and this was the most hilarious available option.

Anyway, I'm glad I finally was able to give Homura and the Chuck team something interesting to do. They were on the verge of being sidelined, so it was fun to write something that wasn't ponies or Negima.

Hopefully the next chapter won't take forever to get posted, but what with my other projects and school, and my job, I can't promise anything.

Thanks for reading.


	9. Too Close for Comfort

**Chapter 9: Too Close for Comfort**

"Pancakes will be ready in a minute!" Konoka announced. She rapped on the counter with her spatula. "Everybody get to the table."

"Oh, man, those things smell awesome!" Rainbow Dash rubbed her hooves together in anticipation. "Come on, Twilight!" She banged a hoof on the table. "Get up!"

"Mrneh," Twilight groaned as she uncurled and stretched.

"What the hay were you doing up so late anyway? Even I got to sleep before you did."

"I was busy writing down some stuff about the interactions between unicorn magic and...whatever the magic from this world is called." She yawned. "I got on a roll and wanted to write it all down before I forgot it."

"Should have known," Rainbow Dash sniffed. "What were you doing over there anyway? You looked a bit-" She crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and twitched a few times. "- You know, kinda wonky."

"Oh, that..." Twilight said, glad that her dark coat helped to mask the slight blush that she knew she had. "Chisame needed my help with something, and it gave me an opportunity to examine how magic works in this world."

"Oh." Rainbow turned back to her plate, having lost interest. Twilight sighed in relief. She knew that the whole kissing thing had simply been a means to an end, but she couldn't count on Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy seeing it that way. Not to mention that thinking about it still made her feel a bit weird. She immediately tensed up again as she heard Fluttershy's voice from behind her.

"Really, what kind of stuff did you do?"

"Nothing too interesting," Twilight mumbled. "Just helping Chisame do a magic thing."

"What kind of-"

"Pancakes are done!" Konoka announced. Fortunately for Twilight, Fluttershy's voice was reserved enough that Konoka drowned her out. Not to mention that both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy appeared to be completely distracted by the massive stack of pancakes that Konoka was placing on the table.

"Awesome!" Rainbow Dash licked her lips.

"Thank you for making breakfast for us," Fluttershy said. "It looks delicious."

"Oh, it's no problem," Konoka answered. "I like cooking, and it got you out of Yue and Nodoka's room. I think Yue was starting to go a little crazy. Besides, my grandpa called Nodoka in. I guess he needed her artifact for something. Negi too."

"Is that where Asuna is, then?" Twilight asked, glad to be talking about something that didn't involve the events of the night before.

"No, she's just delivering newspapers," Konoka said as she began doling out the pancakes. "Needs to get some disposable income from somewhere."

"At least she's outside," Rainbow Dash grumbled. "I haven't gotten to really fly in like a week. My wings are going to fall off if I can't get back on it."

"Negi's says he's still working on it. There are a few places on campus I can think of where you might be able to fly around a bit," Konoka said. "Twilight says that you have some pretty cool tricks."

"That's right!" Rainbow Dash smacked her hoof on the table. "I'm the fastest flier in Equestria! I can't keep sitting around like this or I'll go crazy!"

"Well, I'm sure he'll get something figured out," Konoka said with a chuckle. "I'll be sure to let him know that you're anxious about it." She pointed at the plate of food. "Dig in!"

* * *

><p>Nodoka sat in one of the chairs in the principal's office. She stared intently at her own fingers, which she was twiddling rapidly in the absence of anything else to do. Her arms were pressed tightly against her body to combat the chill in the air. She had only been in the office twice before, and both of those times were regarding Haruna's pranks. She couldn't think of anything that Haruna had done in the last week or so that would merit that sort of attention, so quite naturally she was worried. She nearly jumped out of the chair as the Principal hustled in, followed by Mana and Setsuna, with those three secret agent men following them.<p>

"Sorry for keeping you waiting," Konoemon croaked. "I hate to drag you in here so early, but hopefully this won't take too long." He cleared his throat and took a seat as his desk. "I suppose I should at least try to fill you in on what's going on. I assume you already know about all the strange occurrences around campus, correct?"

She nodded.

"Of course you do, you have some of the ponies staying in your room. Where is my mind today?" He shook her head. "Let's see, what don't you know? Right. Last night our new members of our security team," he nodded at Chuck, Casey, and Morgan, "encountered a robotic military drone of some sort. While that in itself is rather...enigmatic, that's only partially related to why we've brought you here. Mr. Bartowski and Mr. Casey attempted to neutralize it, but they were not adequately armed. However, they also encountered another one of our...mysterious arrivals, I guess? We really need to come up with a better term for them. Anyway, when they first encountered her she was unarmed, but when the robot attacked directly, she managed to produce some sort of missile launcher-"

"A rocket propelled grenade," Casey interjected.

"An RPG-7 to be specific," Chuck added.

"Yes. That," Konoemon mumbled. "It damaged the robot badly enough that Mana and Setsuna were able to neutralize it completely. However, immediately afterward the RPG was nowhere to be found. We currently have no idea where she obtained it, or how she managed to hide it. For obvious reasons, we cannot let her back into the dorms without further investigation. I realize that you don't really like using your artifact for such things, but I think the situation merits it." He stopped, obviously expecting a response.

"I understand," she answered, barely above a whisper. Having so many eyes all trained on her at once made her want to shrink until they couldn't see her anymore.

"Very well, then." Konoemon snapped his fingers. "Mana, Setsuna, would you kindly bring Homura in?"

The two girls turned and walked into the small side room of the office. They emerged with a third girl between them. Nodoka recognized her as the visitor who had been staying in Makie and Ako's room. She had only seen her outside of the room a handful of times. More than anything else, the girl looked tired. There was something weary about the way her arms hung limply at her sides, and the way her half-closed eyes stared blankly forward, looking at nothing in particular. She walked to the other free chair and took a seat, not even bothering to look at anyone else in the room. Konoemon cleared his throat.

"Shall we begin?"

"I don't see why not," the girl said in a tired voice.

"Nodoka?" Konoemon nodded in her direction. Nodoka returned the nod as she withdrew her pactio card from her shirt pocket.

"Adeat." There was a flash of light, and the card was replaced with a old-looking, leather-bound book.

"Ooh, that's cool!" Morgan whispered, loudly enough that it might as well not be a whisper at all.

"Shh," Casey grunted as he elbowed Morgan into silence.

Nodoka opened the book and laid it across her knees. Konoemon cleared his throat and began to speak to Homura.

"Now, I want you to understand that we have no intention of harming you in any way and want you to be as comfortable as possible. It's just that we have to place the safety of our students first and foremost. Please don't hold it against us."

"Of course," she said. Nodoka couldn't tell whether she was being sincere or sarcastic.

"Can you tell us why you were outside after curfew?" Konoemon asked.

"I couldn't sleep."

Nodoka scanned a page of her book and nodded, confirming the truth of the statement. The next few questions were similarly mundane; how long she had been out, how did she find her accommodations, and was she getting along with her roommates. All of Homura's answers were brief, as if she was afraid of wasting her words. Konoemon stroked his beard for a moment in preparation for the harder questions.

"So when you were out taking a walk, and the security officers told you to go back to the dorm, what did you do?"

"I started to walk back," she answered. "I heard the robot so I turned back to see what it was."

"And you weren't afraid when you saw it?"

"No."

"Why not? Most girls in your position would have run."

"I've seen worse."

Nodoka bit her lip as the words wrote themselves into the book on her lap. Hovering above them was a dirty and monstrous scribble. She couldn't quite make out what it was, but it wasn't pleasant in the least. She silently hoped that Konoemon wouldn't want any more detail; she was quite sure that she didn't exactly want to know the exact nature of the dark shape that dominated the page.

"Such as?" the old man said.

"I'd rather not talk about it," Homura answered.

Nodoka fought against her urge to look at the page. She could see another, similarly freakish image on the page and she had no desire to see it in more detail.

"Very well," Konoemon said with a sigh. "During the altercation, you somehow obtained a military grade RPG launcher. Where did you get it?"

"I stole it."

"From whom?"

"The Yakuza."

"The Yakuza?" Konoemon raised an eyebrow. There hadn't been the faintest speck of sarcasm in the girl's voice. He turned to Nodoka, who looked down at her book. There were no traces of falsehood in the words there either. She shrugged affirmatively at the principal, who sighed in resignation. "How exactly did you manage that?"

"I have certain abilities allowed me to proceed unnoticed. It was a long time ago."

"Abilities? Such as?"

"I'd rather not say."

The headmaster frowned for a moment before turning to Nodoka again. She sighed. Even if she understood that the circumstances justified it, she always felt a bit guilty about prying into someone's mind. Homura turned her head a little bit; Nodoka could feel the girl's eyes on her. She gave the black-haired girl the most apologetic look she could manage before reading the page. There were plenty of words on it, but out of respect for Homura's privacy she decided to use only the words that were really necessary.

"Time manipulation," Nodoka said, her voice barely above a whisper. Konoemon nodded at her to continue. "She can temporarily stop time to move around without being detected."

"Have you used this ability since you've been here?" His voice was more serious now.

"I used it a few times when I first arrived," she answered. "I haven't used it again since I was placed in the dorm."

"Do you have any intention of using it again in any way that is harmful of anyone on this campus or invasive of their privacy?"

"No."

"Good." He noted Nodoka's affirmation.

"Do you have any intention of using any of your weapons or other abilities in any way that is harmful to anyone here?"

"No."

"I see." He leaned back in his chair. "As you have no intention of harming anyone, I see no problem in allowing you to return to the dorms. I only require that you not use any of these abilities or weapons except in self defense. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Homura answered flatly.

"Now, then, I believe you are free to-"

"Uh, excuse me-" Chuck interrupted with a mumble, half raising his hand in an attempt to not seem rude. "That doesn't really explain where she got that RPG from. She didn't have it when we first met her."

"Oh, that." Konoemon yawned. "Well, she's familiar with magic, so I'd assume she has some sort of pocket dimension or something that she stores her weapons in. It wouldn't be unheard of. It's actually fairly common in cases of mages who use conventional weaponry." His eyes darted towards Mana for a moment, and then to Homura. "Am I right?"

"More or less," Homura said.

"That does raise another question..." Konoemon continued. "Your ability to manipulate time is quite atypical, and appears to be outside the scope of normal magic. How exactly did you obtain these abilities?"

Homura's body stiffened. She continued to be still, but she seemed to be making a concerted effort to maintain her composure.

"I-" Her voice cracked and she coughed to cover it up. "I'd rather not talk about it. It was an unpleasant experience and I don't like talking about it."

"Would you object if Nodoka simply records your thoughts in her artifact?" Konoemon asked. "I understand that you might prefer not to, but you possess abilities beyond what we are familiar with, and if others with similar abilities appear in the same manner you did, it is rather important that we understand what we are dealing with."

"Very well." Homura closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Nodoka braced herself as she watched the words begin to scratch themselves into existence. At first, they faded in slowly. She could hardly bring herself to look at them; half out of respect for Homura's privacy, and half because she was afraid of what would appear. Despite her misgivings, curiosity won out and she nervously read along. The story was disjointed, fragmented; much more so than she would have expected from Homura's earlier words. She glanced over at the other girl; her hands were clenched so hard that her knuckles were white.

Nodoka could feel the blood draining out of her face as the story unfolded. She could hardly bear to keep reading. The pictures that blossomed on each page terrified her; what the things they represented must have looked like in reality was something she couldn't imagine. The words continued to appear, quicker now, and more disjointed. Homura was breathing slowly, but Nodoka could tell that it was a forced slowness. The words and images sprayed onto the page even faster; so fast that Nodoka could barely even keep up with them as she flipped the pages. Homura's breathing grew more uneven; she was starting to lose control. Her lips were trembling and Nodoka could tell that a lump was starting to form in her throat. The words were appearing so rapidly that Nodoka could barely flip the pages quickly enough. Homura's fists were clenched so hard that her hands were shaking. Her whole body trembled.

"That's enough," Konoemon barked.

Homura's eyes snapped open. She shuddered, and began wringing her hands together. Nodoka swallowed hard. She looked down at the book. At the top of the page was a distorted scribble of a vaguely humanoid figure, surrounded by shadows. The rest of the page was covered with a rambling stream of words; "I can't do it not again I can't protect them I have to protect them I can't do this again they can't die I have to protect them I can't keep doing this I'm too tired and I can't protect them I tried I tried so much but I couldn't protect them it happened again and again and I can't let them down again I can't let them die and I can't keep doing it I have to protect them and I can't let anyone else get hurt..."

"Nodoka, your artifact retains all the information within it until you dismiss it, correct?"

"Yes, sir," she squeaked.

"If you wish, you can leave it here so I can read it. You may dismiss it in..." He looked at his watch, "...two hours or so." He turned to Homura. "I apologize for that. I did not realize that it would be so unpleasant for you."

"No, it is alright," she answered. Her voice was a bit more raw than before, but it was still flat. "I should not allow myself be affected by it so much."

"I see..." he said. "Well, the both of you can return to the dormitory. Nodoka, would you please take Homura back to her room?"

"Of course."

The two girls rose. Nodoka placed her book on the corner of Konoemon's desk. Both girls seemed a bit shaky as they made their way out the door. As it clicked into place behind them, Konoemon took the book and began to flip through the pages. He sighed, and closed it with a heavy sound.

"You three can go," he said, waving dismissively at the three men. "I thank you for your service, and you can rest assured that you will be rewarded for your assistance. Once I consult with Setsuna and Mana we can iron out exactly what it'll be."

"Thanks," Casey grunted. Chuck and Morgan each opened their mouths to say something, but thought better of it in favor of smiling and nodding. The trio hustled out of the room, sensing that Konoemon wanted them to go elsewhere.

"Now then, what is the status of that robot thing?" Konoemon asked. "Does it currently pose any threat?"

"We have every reason to believe that the threat is entirely neutralized," Mana answered. "Between the RPG and Setsuna's attacks, all of its weapons were destroyed, and I hit it with enough binding spells that even if its main systems are still operational it won't be able to move for another week or so. I had the security crew take it to the testing area in the robotics center so Hakase can confirm its deactivation. Hopefully when she examines it she can provide more information about its origin."

"Very good, very good." He turned to Setsuna. "Is there anything else?"

"We managed to track the robot back to its apparent point of origin," she said. "It was apparently heavy enough that it did a fair amount of damage to the pavement as it moved. The damage starts in the area of the train shuttle station, so we believe it first appeared there. We found a set of odd objects in the area; a bunch of small spheres of varying colors made of an unknown substance. They have a very strong magical aura, so they're currently being held at the Shrine until we have an opportunity to examine them more closely. I believe they're enchanted in some way, but we don't know anything definite at the moment, so I sealed them in an anti-magic container."

"So there is no immediate threat?"

"No."

"In that case, you may go as well," the old man said. "Be sure that I receive all findings regarding the objects as soon as they are examined."

The two girls bowed respectfully and vacated the office. Konoemon closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, savoring the silence for a moment. Then he reached for the book. He felt its weight in his hands for a few moments before flipping it open, his old eyes sluggishly scanning the words, turning the pages slowly. As he finally reached the last pages, he sighed heavily. He slammed the book shut, the sound echoing through the empty room.

"How distressing. This may be worse than I thought."

* * *

><p>Chao glanced at her watch. She had been stretched thin enough since the whole the debacle with the Cassiopeia, and now both of her partners were currently otherwise occupied. Hakase was busy fawning over that weird robot, and Mana was currently advising the Principal as he overhauled the campus security in light of recent events. Not only had she spent the whole day working on the stuff that Hakase was supposed to be doing, but now she had to find a replacement mercenary to send on the excursion she had planned for Mana.<p>

Although that last issue might have worked in her favor. Surprisingly enough, Chisame had already managed to locate a replacement; and, all things considered, it was probably better that she outsourced this particular mission anyway. She couldn't quite trust Mana to keep quiet about everything unless she tossed in some extra hush money. If she hired someone with no connection to the school, it was rather unlikely that they'd report it to anyone who mattered, and even without factoring in the hush money, the replacement was a good deal cheaper. Of course, there was no guarantee of quality, but the mission wasn't exactly difficult.

There was a knock on the laboratory door.

"Who is it?"

"Walker," answered a feminine voice.

"Ah, good. Right on time." Chao punched a button on the edge of her desk and the door slid open, revealing a young, blonde woman, dressed in a non-too-average skirt and blouse. She was a good deal more model-ish looking than Chisame's description had implied. "Huh, you aren't exactly what I expected."

"What, you didn't expect me to show up for the briefing in full uniform, did you? Besides, I could say the same thing about you. I generally don't work for children."

"Rest assured that even if you think I'm a child, I'm hardly childish," Chao answered. She pressed the button again, closing the door. "I'll forgive it, though. I get that quite a lot when I apply my considerable intellect and resources towards goals generally pursued by adults. Sometimes I forget that I'm used to special treatment."

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter anyway," Walker answered as she took a seat on one of the stools that littered the laboratory. "As long as you can pay what you offered, it doesn't really matter how old you are. Now, what exactly is this object that you want me to recover?"

"Straight to the point, huh?" Chao chuckled. "Well, it's not exactly an object, per se. Now, this is going to make me sound a bit crazy, but just bear with me for a moment. Recently, there have been a few anomalous events in the area, one of which is the appearance of several...well, see for yourself." She poked another button on the desk and a massive screen popped out of the wall; a collage of images splashed across it.

"Is that...a unicorn?" Walker asked, clearly incredulous.

"Yes, a unicorn and two pegasi," Chao answered. "I get it, their mere existence doesn't make any sense. I could go into more detail about exactly why that is, but it's unnecessary. All you need to know is this: I needed to create means of monitoring their locations. While I was working on it, I realized that there was another one of them that is not accounted for. Your task is to track it down and bring it here. Without hurting it, naturally." She took hold of a device from the table, which appeared to be a heavily modified GPS unit. "This is the tracking device. I have it set up only to track the one whose precise whereabouts are unknown. I'd hate for you to get confused."

"I think I'll be okay," the blonde answered. "Anything else I should be aware of?"

"Well, judging by the energy signature, I'd guess the pony in question is a unicorn, though I can't be sure. From my observations, unicorns seem to be capable of limited telekinesis, and may be able to perform other spells as well. But if you tranquilize it, it shouldn't give you any trouble. If you can't bring it back for some reason, any information about the pony or its whereabouts will be sufficient. Although you will obviously receive a bonus if you bring it back here."

"I see. Capturing a unicorn will be a first for me."

"Good. There's more information, obviously, but I can email that to you. I just needed you here in person so I could give you this." She held out the tracking device, which Walker accepted. "I wish you good luck on your mission."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Walker said with a smile. "I'll be back with your pony in short order. Is that all?"

"That's it."

"In that case I'll be going. I have preparations to make." She bowed and exited.

Chao smiled as the door closed behind Walker. She had no clue where Chisame had found this woman, but something about her was a bit refreshing. The absurdity of the mission had barely phased her, and she charged less than Mana to boot. Hopefully this deal would work out.

* * *

><p>"You're staying in Makie's room, right?" Nodoka asked. Homura merely nodded in response. "Well, here we are." Nodoka gestured at the door. She could hear Makie's voice babbling from within.<p>

"Thank you," Homura said. As she reached for the doorknob, Nodoka took a quick step forward and wrapped her arms around Homura and squeezed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into Homura's ear. "About the mind reading, about...everything that you...I didn't know..." She released Homura from the hug and took a step back. "Sorry about that, too," she mumbled.

"I...uh...it's alright..." Homura murmured.

"Okay, I suppose, I'll see you around then." Nodoka bowed and scurried back to her own room.

Homura allowed herself a small smile before she entered her room.

* * *

><p><em>Log #6<em>

_ May 28_

_ Yesterday I was afforded the opportunity to take part in a magical ritual (called a "pactio") as a means of experiencing this world's particular type of magic firsthand. It involves the magic practitioner, dubbed the "magister" or "magistra" (in this case, myself) linking their magical aura to another person, the "minister" or "ministra", whom then benefits from the magical energy. I'm a bit fuzzy on the specifics, but it appears that the benefits involve the ministra receiving a magical item called an "artifact" that has certain magical powers and abilities related to their interests and personality. The magical link can also enhance the physical abilities of the ministra. The magistra does not receive quite as many benefits, but it seems that they can use the link to contact that ministra telepathically. The other benefits for the magistra appear to be social rather than magical; the concept of the pactio was apparently designed so that the ministra could protect the magistra so the latter could cast spells uninterrupted. _

_ But in any case, that is irrelevant to the current situation. More interestingly, this experience confirmed my theory concerning the interactions of pony magic with this world's magic: All of the magical energy is the same. The only difference is the way in which the subject manipulates the magic. The different pony races all manipulate the same energy in different ways. Unicorn biology naturally funnels the magic to a single point: the horn. That natural focus is what allows unicorns to cast spells; it is only when all the magic is funneled to a single outlet that it is possible to organize the magic into a spell with a predetermined effect. Pegasi magic functions differently; it is concentrated primarily in the wings. This allows for aspects of flight, and their ability to interact with clouds and other weather formations, but it is not focused enough to cast specific spells. Earth pony magic is even less focused, being more or less dispersed equally throughout their bodies. While this doesn't grant them any specialized abilities, it gives them unnaturally high strength and stamina, in addition to the latent magic subtly influencing items that they work, especially in the case of plants._

_ What is interesting is that humans don't have any form of natural focus for their magic, which implies that they shouldn't be able to use any sort of spells whatsoever. However, they seem to have found a way to use external objects such as wands or charms as focus points to enable spellcasting. While unicorns have occasionally used such items for enhancement purpose, I don't believe there is any documented case of a non-unicorn being able to use an external focus in such a manner. If the humans have found a way to manage it, it may be possible to teach pegasi and earth ponies to cast unicorn spells by means of an external focus. When I have time, I may make an attempt to teach Fluttershy how to cast a spell. (I obviously can't use Rainbow Dash as a test subject; there's far too much potential for her to misuse her newfound power should the experiment work.)_

_ The other interesting aspect of experiencing the pactio is that I managed to detect certain variations in the different magical auras; pony magic is subtly different from the native magic. It's the same substance, but it manifests a bit differently; I suppose the best image to describe it would be to say that it vibrates on a different wavelength or something of that nature. This means that by examining the-_

"Hey Twilight!" Rainbow Dash burst through the door. "Haruna's about to start another movie. Something about rings. Nodoka thinks you'll like it."

"Maybe," Twilight answered, not even bothering to turn around. "I think I might have figured out a way to find out if there are any more ponies around."

"Really?" Rainbow Dash hovered across the room and plopped herself down next to Twilight. "How?"

"Well, when I made that magical contract, I realized that there are many minor variations between my own magical energy and the magical energy of this world. If I can detect these cosmological variations in the magic, I may be able to locate the source of the-"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rainbow Dash interrupted.

"I think I can make a spell that can find other ponies. I haven't quite worked the kinks out of it, but if it works, we might be able to find our friends. And if not, at least we'll know that Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity probably didn't get sucked out of Equestria."

"Awesome!" Rainbow Dash jumped up and flew in a few tight celebratory circles.

"Don't get too excited!" Twilight telekinetically nabbed Rainbow Dash's tail, leaving her dangling in the air. "I still don't know if it's going to work; and if it does, I don't know if they'll actually be anywhere around here."

"Well, when are you going to finish it?"

"It's actually more or else complete. I just have to finish documenting it so that I can-"

"Oh who cares about that!" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "You might be able to find AJ, Rarity, and Pinkie, and you're holding up the process because you want to write the stuff down? Why would you give a flying feather about that when our friends could be out there? I'm going to go grab Fluttershy and when we get back, you're casting that spell whether or not you have it written down, okay? You can do that after we find our friends, okay?"

Before Twilight had a chance to respond, Rainbow Dash had disappeared into the hallway. Twilight slowly turned back to her journal. She rapped herself on the forehead with a hoof and with a loud groan swept a foreleg across the table, sending everything to the floor.

"What the hay am I doing?" she mumbled to herself. "How could I do that? I'm being such an idiot. I need to find my friends, not worry about getting the spell in a book someplace. I need to get it to work. Where'd I put that map...?"

* * *

><p>Rainbow Dash tried not to smile too widely as she bolted across the hallway back to Haruna's room. Twilight was obviously just selling herself short, and the spell would obviously work. At least that's what Rainbow Dash was telling herself. There were a few memories in her head of how the unicorn's spells had backfired catastrophically, but they were currently shoved into the deepest darkest corners of her subconscious mind, right beside those memories of that botched Triple Twist that had landed her in the hospital. No use in dwelling on the negatives, after all. If the spell failed, nothing would really change. But if it worked...she could barely contain her giddiness as she burst into the room. Yue and Nodoka sat on their desks. Haruna was on the sofa, all the way at one end of it. Rainbow Dash directed her call at the seemingly empty space.<p>

"Fluttershy! Come here, I need you for something!"

"Huh?" The yellow pegasus' head emerged from behind the couch cushion. "What's going on?"

"Twilight can explain it better than I can, now hurry up!" Rainbow hovered over to the couch, clamped her teeth down on Fluttershy's tail and began to tow her towards the door.

"So, uh, what exactly came up so suddenly?" Haruna asked.

"RRRRGGHH!" Rainbow related Fluttershy's tail. "It's, um, just pony things. Yeah, you can just start the movie without us. Not sure how long it'll take. Come on, Fluttershy."

"I think we'll hold off on starting the movie if you aren't going to be here," Yue said. "There are three of them, and they're all really long. No reason for you to get behind."

"Well, great, we'll just have to finish them up later then, I guess." Rainbow Dash babbled as she prodded Fluttershy towards the door. "Bye!"

"See you later!" Fluttershy managed to wave goodbye as Rainbow Dash hauled her out the door, kicking it shut after them.

"So what do you think she means by 'pony things'?" Haruna asked. "You think that's anything like, you know, 'girl things'?"

"Girl things?" Nodoka said.

"Yeah, you know, like...personal hygiene stuff?"

"You mean like brushing their teeth or something?" Nodoka scratched her head, mildly confused by Haruna's question.

"No no no..." Haruna shook her head. "I mean, like, you know, 'trolling for vampires', 'saddling up on Old Rusty', 'taking Carrie to prom', 'arts and crafts week at panty camp', 'panty shields up, captain!', '_that _time of the month', 'playing banjo in Sgt. Zygote's ragtime-'"

"Okay okay, we get it!" Yue interrupted. "Just call it menstruation! We're all girls, after all. There's no need to use such obtuse euphemisms for something that we all experience on a regular basis anyway."

"But euphemisms are so much funnier," Haruna giggled. "But seriously, do you think that they have to deal with stuff like that?"

"That's..." Nodoka mumbled awkwardly. "...Wouldn't they have said something if they had those kinds of needs?"

"I dunno," Haruna said with a shrug. "Maybe they do and they just assume that humans don't, so we wouldn't understand. I mean, if you got dumped in pony-land or wherever they came from, wouldn't you feel kinda awkward about bringing that up?"

"Initially, I suppose, but I seriously doubt that they'd go to such lengths to hide a natural bodily function. I'm sure that someone as mature as Twilight would be able to bring up something like that without embarrassment."

"Sure, be all boring about it..." Haruna grumbled. Suddenly her face lit up with a perverse grin.

"Dare I even ask what thought just crossed your mind?" Yue asked.

"Well," Haruna tried to look thoughtful. "Maybe one of them is heat, and they-"

"_Haruna_!" Nodoka exclaimed. "Why would you say something like that!-?"

Yue just put her hand to her forehead.

"What? Horses do that, don't they?"

"I have no idea, and frankly that's none of your business anyway," Yue snapped. "Even if they were...that, we'd have no business prying into it."

"So you admit it!" Haruna leaped to her feet. "It's a possibility!"

"I suppose if you want to be entirely technical, it is," Yue admitted. "Though I feel compelled to add the caveat that there is absolutely no reason to make such an assumption."

"Yeah, it's really kind of weird..." Nodoka said. "I mean, there are all sorts of other things they might be doing. Why assume something strange like that?"

"You guys are no fun." Haruna crossed her arms across her chest and pouted. "It's not like there's any reason to assume they aren't doing something like that. What do you think they're doing?"

"I'm not sure..." Nodoka said. "Maybe Twilight figured out a way to talk to their other pony friends back in their world or something."

"And you think that my theory is out there..." Haruna sniffed.

"I'll admit it's not terribly unlikely..." Yue muttered reluctantly. "It's just in bad taste." She paused at the sound of "Bananaphone" blasting out of her cellphone. "Thank goodness, a distraction from this line of conversation." She flipped the phone open. "Hello? Yes. I see. Very well." She closed the phone.

"Who was it?" Nodoka asked.

"It was Negi-sensei," Yue answered as she began untangling the straps of her backpack from the back of her chair. "He wants us to actually come to class today. I know we've been keeping an eye on the ponies, but they seem to be largely self-sufficient, and if we skip too many school days people might notice."

"I was wondering how long I'd be able to get out of class for," Haruna said with a resigned sigh. "I guess you're right. The ponies can take care of themselves for a day or two."

"Do you think we should tell the ponies that we're leaving?" Nodoka said.

"Nah, we'll just leave a note." Haruna scribbled a few sentences onto on a napkin and smacked it down on the table. "There. Hopefully they won't destroy the room or something."

"I'm sure they won't," Nodoka answered. "We should get going. We can't keep Negi-sensei waiting."

The trio shuffled lethargically out of the room, Nodoka and Yue prodding Haruna forward.

* * *

><p>"I thought you were ready to cast the spell..." Rainbow Dash grumbled as she hovered lazily from corner to corner of the room. "Can't you just like, 'zap!', and there they are?"<p>

"I'm casting the spell right now!" Twilight answered. She was hunched over the desk, across the surface of which was stretched a map of the Mahora campus and surrounding countryside. Her horn glowed brightly, etching a purple sheen onto the paper. "I have to align the map properly so that the information I receive from the spell corresponds to it properly. Now be quiet so I can concentrate!" She turned her attention back to her magic.

"Do you think the spell will work, Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked in her usual squeak. She was curled up on the end of the couch shivering half from excitement and half from apprehension at the amount of magic that Twilight was gathering.

"Of course!" Rainbow Dash waved a hoof at Fluttershy as if to shoo away her anxiety. "It's her special talent, remember? She'd never botch something so important. Well, except for that parasprite thing, but that was just a fluke."

"But what about that failsafe spell?" Fluttershy answered, not sounding very reassured. "Or that time when she tried to enchant the snowplow?"

"Right. Those." Rainbow Dash stopped her hover-pacing, and dangled still in the air, held up by her wings. "Well, it's still not very often. Although there was that time she botched that teleportation spell-"

"Quiet!" Twilight yelled. "I'm trying to concentrate! Unless you want me to mess this up, stop talking. I'm almost done."

She turned back to the map, her entire body shaking with the effort of keeping the massive amounts of magical energy channeling smoothly into the spell. The glow at the tip of her horn was growing brighter and brighter by the second, casting the entire room in a supernaturally purple glow. Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped a bit as the glow began to lift Twilight into the air.

"Oh crap-" Rainbow Dash dove behind the sofa and pulled Fluttershy down beside her, shielding her head with her hooves.

"What are you-" The yellow pegasus got only halfway through her question before being interrupted by an explosive pop and a massive purple shock wave. There was a moment of silence, then a thud as Twilight fell to the floor. There was another moment of silence, and Rainbow Dash cautiously poked her head out from behind her cover. Nothing in the room had really been damaged, although just about everything had been disheveled a bit. Twilight lay on her back, her legs protruding into the air, twitching. As she slowly rolled herself right-side up, Rainbow Dash could see that Twilight's mane had been blasted into a series of rather spectacular spikes. She started rubbing her head.

"Well, horsefeathers," Rainbow Dash grumbled as she emerged from her hiding place. "Don't worry, I'm sure that you'll be able to figure it-"

"YEEEEESSS!" Rainbow Dash jumped back as Twilight suddenly sprang to her feet, a psychotically wide smile on her face. "YESYESYESYESYESYESYES! It worked! It worked!"

"It worked?" Fluttershy nervously poked her head out. "But what about that, that explosion?"

"That was supposed to happen!" Twilight exclaimed, her voice at a gallop. "The way the spell works it has to shoot out a bunch of magic. Then when it interacts with other sources of magic, it reports back any anomalies, and then the spell calculates-"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rainbow Dash interrupted.

"The magic has to go out so it can tell me if there are any other ponies out there!" Twilight said, only slightly slower. "It'll cause any unusual sources of magic to show up on my map. If they do, I can figure out if any of them are ponies." She stared intently at the map, which shimmered with a faint amount of magical energy. "Come on, come on..." Her eyes widened as the shimmers began to consolidate into a handful of small glowing dots of varying shapes and sizes. "YES YES YES!" She clapped her forehooves together triumphantly."

"Did it work?" Fluttershy asked, craning her head over the map.

"It did!" Twilight squeaked triumphantly. The paper was marked by a handful of small glows. Twilight waved her hoof at a bright pink glow at the very corner of the map, one of the largest. "There's another pony out there!"

* * *

><p>Homura sat up. After Nodoka had dropped her off, she had flopped onto the couch and spent the subsequent hour staring at the ceiling, thinking. Her thoughts came and went so quickly and fluidly that they blurred together, but most of them seemed to be about that book. Homura felt a little stupid for it, but she felt a bit guilty. Nodoka shouldn't have had to read that. She was just a nice, shy schoolgirl. She should never have been subjected to the litany of horrors of Homura's past. There was a small voice back in Homura's mind that wanted to scream that once she had been the same kind of girl, and that she had actually experienced all those things, but another louder voice reminded her that it had been her choice to go down that road, even if she hadn't fully understood it at the time. Besides, she had long since grown accustomed to the consequences of her actions. She had accepted her fate and done her best to be content with the lot she had drawn for herself. She should have comforted Nodoka, not the other way around.<p>

She stretched, her back popping as she straightened up. Makie and Ako were in class, and likely wouldn't be back for hours; they had headed off while she was in the office. When she had entered the room, she had found a smudged note on the table written in pink gel pen: "In class. Food is in the fridge. Feel free to use the TV or computer. Be back this evening." Homura sighed, and reached for the remote. It had been who knows how long since she had ever had time to watch television. She had no idea what was popular or if the shows here were even remotely similar to those back home, but it didn't really matter. She needed something to fill the time.

She began to flip rather aimlessly through the modest handful channels that the dorm received. Nothing particularly caught her interest. She settled on a game show. Something about it was welcoming. It was mundane, but she didn't really want anything else. She had forgotten what it was like to not have to worry about anything other than guessing what the answers were. Her only wish was that she could feel a bit more frustration when when a contestant missed an easy answer. Although, maybe in this world, it wasn't such an easy question. Maybe it was miraculous that they had made such a close guess. She had no way of knowing outside of the overly happy host's snide comments. She changed the channel. She was still searching for something watchable when she heard a knock on the door.

She opened it a few inches to find Fluttershy sitting outside. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Homura opened the door the rest of the way and gestured for the pony to come inside.

"What brings you over?" Homura asked in her most welcoming tone, which didn't sound very welcoming.

"Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing," Fluttershy said quietly. "I didn't really get to talk to you much after everybody found us."

"I've been fine," Homura answered flatly. She returned to her seat on the couch and resumed channel surfing. She sighed. The pony had only been her companion for a short while, but she had to admit that it had made their joint wanderings at least a bit more bearable. She owed Fluttershy more of a response. "I suppose I'm getting a bit bored, not really having much to do. Before I ended up here, I was...busy. It's nice that I don't have so much hanging over my head, but I'm just not really sure what to do while I'm here. What about you?"

"Oh, I was a bit scared at first, but with my friends here it isn't so bad. Twilight is working on a spell to try to find some of our other friends. I hope we can find them. I really miss them."

"So you've been with the other ponies, then?" Homura asked, somewhat despondently.

"Yes, we've been playing games over in Nodoka and Haruna's room, mostly. Sometimes we go to the teacher's room. Konoka cooked for us once."

"I see."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Fluttershy slowly edged closer to Homura. "You look...tired."

"I'm not tired, just..." Homura searched for the right word, but couldn't quite find the right one, "...unsure of what to do with myself."

"I guess it can't be easy," Fluttershy said, "having to sit in here all by yourself." Suddenly, her face brightened. "If you wanted to, you could come over to our room. We were going to watch a movie. I'm sure that Twilight and Rainbow Dash wouldn't mind. They'd probably want to get to know you a bit better. I mean, I know it's not the same as being with your own friends, but it can't be much fun to sit in here alone. Being alone is no fun."

"I..." Homura started to answer, but clamped her mouth shut. Her first impulse was to refuse, like she had done so many times. But this was different. There was no reason for her to push anyone, or any pony, away. It had been so long since she had received such an honest offer that she would have been a fool to turn it down. Besides, Fluttershy was so adorable that Homura wasn't sure that she could have turned her down even if there was a good reason. "I guess so."

"That's great!" Fluttershy said, beaming. "We should probably get going. Rainbow Dash was getting a bit impatient. She wants to start the movie."

Homura turned off the television and stood up. Fluttershy was already waiting by the door, fidgeting as she waited. Homura couldn't help but smile a little. It was about time she at least attempted to do something that might be fun.

* * *

><p>Haruna hustled down the hallway towards her room. Even though she had only managed to escape a few days worth of classes, she had already forgotten how annoying it was to have to sit in a room and listen to the teachers talk. Nodoka and Yue gone to keep up their library club duties; they had correctly guessed that Haruna was too distracted by her desire to hang out with the magic ponies and sent her back to the room to check up on them. She flung the door open as dramatically as she could manage.<p>

"Honey, I'm hoooome!" She froze mid-pose in the doorway as she noted an unfamiliar figure. Homura sat stoically on the couch, Fluttershy curled up on her lap. Homura's hand was gently stroking the pony's mane. Rainbow Dash and Twilight were curled up on the other side of the couch. Homura stopped, and turned slowly around. "Oh, hello," Haruna said as she closed the door, switching her manner of speech to something slightly less over the top. "You're that girl that had that time stop powers and stuff, right?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Uh, well, it's good to actually meet you, I guess." She bobbed her head at Homura, who reciprocated. "My name is Haruna."

"Homura," she answered. "I suppose if you're coming back I should go back to my own room-"

"Nah, it's fine." Haruna dumped her bag on the floor, and walked to the couch. "Move over." She made a shooing motion at Twilight and Rainbow Dash, who grumbled a bit as they moved closer to the end of the couch. Haruna squeezed herself into the remaining space. "So you're what, halfway into the second movie? Awesome, just in time for the battle." She turned to Homura and threw a hand around her shoulder. Homura twitched a bit, unsure of exactly how to respond. "You just feel free to hang out here whenever, okay?" Haruna said. "Nodoka and Yue are cool. They won't mind having you around. And we're totally cooler than Makie anyway."

* * *

><p>Walker poked her head out from the bush she was hiding behind. Chao's pony detector had led her to the grounds of a particularly gaudy estate that seemed to have been designed with the sole purpose of one-upping the palace at Versailles. Walker wasn't an expert on Japanese culture by any means, but she had visited frequently enough to know that land prices should be so high that a privately owned estate of this size and opulence would be an impossibility. She quickly surveyed the area before ducking back into the bush to examine the detector's screen. The little blinking light that indicated her target was inside the west wing of the massive mansion.<p>

A few silent dashes later, and she was sidling along the edge of the building. She could hear voices from around the corner. There was apparently a section of the building that opened into a courtyard; the voices were too loud to be in an enclosed space. One of them sounded like a young female, perhaps in her mid-twenties, with a posh mid-Atlantic accent. The other voice seemed to belong to an older man who spoke only briefly and in very polite tones.

"Would you please be a dear and bring me some more of these lovely rhinestones?" said the female voice. "The blue ones, specifically. They'll look fabulous on this sash."

"Of course, miss."

Walker poked her head around the corner. She had been right; a massive inner room opened into a pillared courtyard with a tiled roof. In the center of the courtyard stood a small white pony with an intricately coiffed violet mane. She was examining a tall dress-form with a half-finished pale blue dress wrapped around it. Standing next to the dress-form was a mustachioed man who was quite obviously a butler of some sort. He seemed to be taking directions from the pony; she seemed to be sending him to fetch something. As soon as he was gone, Walker would make her move. A few tranquilizer darts, and a quick sprint, and she would be in the clear and well on her way to getting some cash in her pockets. It would certainly be one of the weirder jobs she had taken, but work was work...

She spun around at the sound of a crunch from a short ways away. It had come from the shrubs that grew against the edge of the garden shed a short distance away. She tried to hold as still as possible as she saw a pony's head pop out of the bush. Half a moment later, two pegasi descended slowly out of the night sky. All three of them were clad in form fitting bodysuits not unlike Walker's own.

"Next time wait until you're a little closer to the ground before you let go, okay Dash?" Twilight whispered, loudly enough for Walker to hear her. "Not all of us are used to crashing into stuff all the time."

"Fine, Fluttershy can carry you back," Rainbow Dash sniffed. "I still don't see why we had to wait until the middle of the night for this."

"Because we're technically supposed to stay on the Mahora campus, and they'll notice if we went missing in the middle of the day. Besides, we can't let anybody else see us. That's what the suits are for. They help us blend in at night."

"But where did you get these from anyway?" Fluttershy asked.

"They were still in the bottom of my saddlebags from that time that Pinkie, Spike, and I snuck into the Canterlot library. Don't ask."

"You did what?" Rainbow Dash's whisper was heavy with incredulity.

"I said don't ask!"

Walker groaned. She should have had Chao set the detector to detect all the ponies rather than just the one she was after.

"Okay, according to the map, the pony should be right over there!" Twilight indicated the courtyard. Let's go!"

Walker started to sidle along the edge of the building as quickly as she could manage without drawing attention to herself. The ponies apparently weren't as concerned with stealth. They were scuttling rather rapidly across the lawn. She mentally counted the number of cartridges in her tranquilizer gun. It wasn't exactly accurate from very far off, but if she could get close enough she could just knock them all out and grab the one she wanted. But that didn't look likely; they were getting too far ahead of her. At least she could see that the butler was out of the picture.

"Rarity!" Rainbow Dash took to the air.

"Wha- Rainbow Dash?" Rarity just had enough time to turn around before the pegasus barreled into her.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Fluttershy bounded into the courtyard and threw her forelegs around her friend.

"Wh-where did you come from?" Rarity babbled, her voice nearly overcome by a mix of shock and joy. "It's so good to see you all. How did you end up here?"

"We're working on figuring that out," Twilight answered, as she finally reached the courtyard, a bit out of breath from the sprint. "I'm so happy I was able to find you." She paused, and a look of confusion spread across her face as she noticed the dress. "What have you been doing out here anyway?"

Walker took a deep breath and drew her tranquilizer gun. She hated to break up the reunion, but she had a job to do. She leaned out from the wall and popped off a round at the pegasus with the blue coat. The dart just missed the tip of Rainbow Dash's muzzle, embedding itself in the dress-form.

"What was that?" She immediately jumped into the air, wrapped all of her limbs around Rarity and began to carry her. "We've got company!"

"Okay, time for a retreat!" Twilight yelled. "Fluttershy, we have to get out of here!" Fluttershy grabbed Twilight and took flight.

"Damn it," Walker muttered to herself. She threw caution to the wind and sprinted towards the courtyard, taking shots at the ponies, who were rapid going in the opposite direction. She threw the now-empty gun to the ground and vaulted the edge of the courtyard wall. Fortunately, the courtyard roof seemed to have inhibited their progress. Walker took a deep breath and charged as hard as she could, closing the gap.

"Go, go!" Twilight shouted.

"I'm going, I'm going!" Rainbow Dash grunted. She braced herself and flapped her wings with all the strength she could muster. "WHOOOO!" She shouted in triumph as she shot out from under the roof and into the air. But her cry was a millisecond too early. Walker had closed the gap. As Rainbow Dash curved upward, she felt a huge jolt, as if Rarity's weight had inexplicably doubled. She looked down to see Walker dangling beneath her, latched onto Rarity's legs. "Oh horseapples."

Back on the ground, the butler strode into the courtyard holding a large box, which rattled with each step.

"Miss Rarity, I've brought you the rhinestones you asked- oh my." He said with the suitably butler-ish understatement to the sight of the scuffle's aftermath. He sighed as he set the box on a nearby ledge and drew a cellphone from his pocket. He held it up to his ear as he watched the ponies and the human disappear into the distance. "Miss Ayaka, it appears that there has been an incident involving your guest..."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>Oh wow, this was a long one. There was so much stuff to cram in here that I couldn't even fit it all. Most of the scenes in here were originally intended to be shorter, but just sort of spiraled out of control. In any case, I can't think of too much to say here, so I'll just note that due to school things I'll be taking a break from writing stuff for a week or two. The end of the semester is coming up, and papers have to take priority, unfortunately enough. I'm planning to get back on things near the end of April. So I'm not dropping anything, just taking a break.<p>

Anyway, hopefully this chapter was entertaining. Thanks for reading. Reviews are welcome.


	10. Rising Tide

**Chapter 10: Rising Tide  
><strong>

Walker had been in odd situations before. Disarming a bomb using porn. Using video game analogies to talk an amateur through landing a helicopter. Cosplaying as Princess Leia in her metal slave bikini to avoid blowing her cover. But this was probably the weirdest. Currently, she swung through the air, hanging on for dear life to a white unicorn, whom was in turn dangling beneath a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane. The unicorn was wiggling her leg furiously, trying to shake her off. Walker could barely make out the words over the sound of the wind rushing in her ears, but the unicorn was definitely yelling something at her.

"Get off! Let go! You're hurting my leg and it's going to ruin my hooficure!"

Walker looked down, and then looked immediately back up. They seemed to be heading back in the general direction of Mahora. The pegasus swooped, and Walker could feel her fingers start to burn. She hoped they would land soon. She couldn't hold on forever.

* * *

><p>"Chuck, can you stop that? You're going to wear a hole in the floor." Morgan looked over the top of the comic book he was reading and watched Chuck pace back and forth across the room. The two of them, along with Casey, had been put up in what appeared to be an unused dorm room, which was inexplicably located in one of the wings of the shrine. It was a bit odd, but it beat getting put in one of the dorms.<p>

"Well, I can't just sit here and do nothing," Chuck answered. He reached the end of the room and turned quickly on his heel. "Sarah is out there somewhere, I know it! She might be in danger. We have to find her!"

"If you want to find her, then go find her!" Morgan tossed the book onto his bed. "You aren't going to find her in here, so if you're going to pace, you should pick a direction and just pace that way. You know, to somewhere that you haven't seen already where she actually might be?"

"I can't, because of this thing!" Chuck held up his hand and pointed at what looked like a rather elaborate tattoo pattern on his wrist. Both himself and his two compatriots had received them shortly before being put on security detail. "If I leave the campus, it'll trip this magic tracking thing and we'll have Hawkgirl and the Punisher's illegitimate daughter tracking us down. If that happens, I'll never get a chance to look for her. At least if I get on their good side I might get a longer range on this thing. I can't do anything suspicious or I might not ever get the chance to look for her."

"And clearly, going on a sightseeing tour of the campus would count as suspicious?" Morgan rolled his eyes. "Seriously, dude, I spent like all four years of college playing video games, and even I think you need to get out more. Like that giant tree thing. Have you seen that? You should totally go see that. It's really cool."

"You aren't helping!"

"All I'm saying is that there are really only a couple things you can do. You can go look around the campus and have the chance of stumbling across something useful, or you can mope around here and accomplish nothing other than leaving scuff marks everywhere. I mean, it isn't like she's just going to drop out of the-"

There was a tremendous crash; the ceiling above Chuck's bed collapsed in a cloud of dust. Almost immediately, a feminine voice with a mid-Atlantic accent began to speak.

"Rainbow Dash, was it really necessary to land in such an inelegant manner? It'll take forever to pick all this debris out of my mane."

"Good to see you, too," another female voice answered. This one sounded vaguely familiar. "You'll have plenty of time to clean your mane."

"And you!" the first voice continued. "Let go of my tail! You're going to ruin the curls!"

The dust finally began to settle, revealing two ponies and a young woman sitting on the bed. Chuck's eyes bulged as he recognized the woman.

"Sarah?"

"Chuck?"

He rushed forward, and she sprang off the bed to meet him, sharing a tight hug.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "I mean, how did you end up-"

"I don't know! We trying to infiltrate that mansion, and-"

"No, I'm talking about the...well..." Chuck gestured at the massive hole in the ceiling. "That."

"Oh, that. It's kind of a long story, Chuck."

"What on earth is going on in-" Mana froze as she saw the destruction, and the unfamiliar faces. She sighed and reached for her cell phone. "Setsuna, let the principal know that he's going to have to have another meeting."

* * *

><p>"You're back already? I remember his speech being a lot longer than that when we had to listen to it," Morgan muttered as Mana escorted Sarah, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash into the Tatsumiya Shrine's courtyard.<p>

"At least you didn't have to listen to it twice," Rainbow Dash grumbled. "I still don't know why I had to be there."

"Consider it punishment for damaging the roof," Mana sniffed. "You're rather lucky that the principal isn't forcing you to pay for that. And tempted as I am to pry into exactly why you were flying around out here, carrying two new arrivals around with you, he's given me the order not to pry into this incident. But keep in mind that I'll be keeping an eye on you, and I will not be so lenient if something else happens. I suggest you watch yourself from now on."

She gave the rainbow pegasus a sharp glare before disappearing into the shrine. No sooner had she vanished than two familiar faces popped out of a nearby bush.

"Twilight! Fluttershy!" Rarity rushed over and all but jumped onto her two friends. "I was wondering what happened to you!"

"So were we!" Twilight said. "Fluttershy lost track of where Rainbow Dash was flying, and by the time we found you guys, that dark skinned girl was leading you away. We figured that they'd bring you back here eventually."

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Fluttershy gave Rarity a squeeze. "When I saw that hole in the roof, I was afraid that you had gotten hurt."

"Yes, it was quite miraculous that I was not injured," Rarity answered. "At least Rainbow Dash has plenty of experience crashing into things."

"Hey, you try flying in a straight line with that much weight on you!" Rainbow Dash snapped.

"Just what are you trying to imply!-?" Rarity said with a gasp.

"I'm not talking about you," Rainbow Dash said. "I'm talking about her!" She thrust a hoof at Sarah, whom was in the midst of having her own reunion moment with Chuck and Morgan. "She totally threw off my aerodynamics, and she weighs a lot more than a pony does!"

Sarah sensed that she was the subject of conversation, and turned around to see Rainbow Dash stalking towards her.

"What exactly were you doing anyway? Trying to kidnap Rarity for some reason?"

Sarah sighed. She had never been one to blab about a job, but these were some pretty exceptional circumstances. Add in the fact that she had been hired by a high school student, she didn't have quite the usual incentive to keep quiet. At least not about everything.

"Someone on this campus paid me to retrieve her. I know it's not my usual line of work, but after getting dumped here I had to take whatever jobs I could get. I never had any indication of hurting any of you."

Rainbow Dash continued to glare suspiciously.

"Then what was the gun for?"

"Those were tranquilizer rounds. It would just knock you unconscious for an hour or so. I didn't even want to use it, but when all of you showed up I had to at least try to complete my mission."

"I don't know, I still think that's a bit suspicious," Rainbow Dash continued. "I mean, yeah, Chuck attacked us too, but he was just trying to rescue his buddy there." She waved a hoof at Morgan.

"Rescue him from what?"

"He kinda got captured by the ponies and some of the school's students," Chuck answered.

"Yeah, I kinda...well, when I appeared here it was kinda, sorta, inside a girls' dorm," Morgan mumbled. "So they thought that I was trying to do something...unseemly, let's call it. Really crappy luck."

"See!" Sarah dropped to her knees so she could look the ponies in the eyes. "It was just that sort of misunderstanding. If I would have known everything that was going on, I probably wouldn't have tried to do anything." She turned to Rarity. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for trying to kidnap you."

"Don't worry yourself about it," Rarity answered. "After showing up in a completely unknown world, it's only natural that you have to scramble a bit."

"Wait wait wait." Twilight stepped forward. "Am I the only one here who's a bit worried about that fact that somepon- somebody paid...what's your name, again?"

"Sarah Walker."

"Good to meet you. I'm Twilight Sparkle. This is Fluttershy, that's Rainbow Dash, and the pony you were trying to kidnap is Rarity." She waved her hoof at each pony as she introduced them. Sarah waved awkwardly at each of them, trying not to think about how bizarre the situation was. "But we can have introductions later," Twilight continued. "Right now, I'm a little concerned that there's somebody out there who wants to kidnap Rarity."

"That is a bit scary..." Fluttershy mumbled. "Do you have any ideas about who it might be?"

"Well, I don't know anything, obviously, but I think Nightmare Moon might have something to do with this."

"Nightmare Moon!-?" All the other ponies gasped in unison.

"But we zapped her with the Elements of Harmony, remember?" Rainbow Dash began to flutter back and forth in a rather nervous manner. "She turned back into Princess Luna. And she's pretty nice."

"Nightmare Night, notwithstanding..." Fluttershy muttered.

"Well, yes. I don't know all the details because Princess Celestia never liked to talk about it, but I think that some outside force may have corrupted Princess Luna and turned her into Nightmare Moon."

"Um, excuse me." Morgan raised his hand.

"Yes?" Twilight said, feeling a bit like a teacher.

"Who's this 'Nightmare Moon' person? Are they like a monster or something or what?"

"Nightmare Moon is the evil side of Princess Luna, one of the two Princesses of Equestria." As Twilight began to speak, the other ponies groaned. They knew her well enough to recognize when she was going into lecture mode. "Princess Celestia is the princess of the day, and controls the sun. Princess Luna is the princess of the night, and she controls the moon. Princess Luna became corrupted somehow and became Nightmare Moon. To keep her from taking over Equestria, Princess Celestia sealed her in the moon. A thousand years later she escaped and tried to throw the world into eternal night, but my friends and I used the Elements of Harmony to defeat her and purify her of the corrupting influence, turning her back into Princess Luna."

"So, these two princesses control the sun and moon?" Chuck asked. "That's..actually pretty badass. It kinda violates pretty much every law of physics though."

"Are you calling the princesses donkeys!-?" Twilight snapped. "And bad donkeys at that?"

"What? No, it's just a figure of speech," Chuck said babbled. "Like an idiom or something."

"An idiom?" Twilight cocked her head.

"Yeah, if somebody is badass it means that they're really cool or strong or something," Morgan answered. "It's a little vague, but it's a good thing."

"Okay, if you say so." Twilight cleared her throat and re-entered lecture mode. "Nightmare Moon demonstrated several powerful magical abilities when we faced her, and it might not be outside of her ability to cause something like what's been going on. I'm not sure why it affects humans and others who aren't from Equestria, but I think it fits. This whole thing started with irregularities in the night sky, and since she knows that the Elements of Harmony are her weak point, she might have ordered the kidnapping to break up the element bearers. Something may have caused whatever it was that corrupted her in the first place to return."

"Um, I'm pretty sure that it wasn't an evil pony princess who hired me..." Sarah said.

"Well, she's probably just better at covering her tracks this time." Twilight pensively stroked her chin. "Last time she was quite blatant about the whole thing and it didn't really work out for her."

"I suppose that might be possible," Sarah admitted. "Maybe tomorrow I could take you all to see the person who hired me. I was supposed to meet her tomorrow morning."

"Why not now?" Rainbow Dash zipped back and forth. "We should go track them down! Nobody tries to kidnap one of us and gets away with it."

"No, we should probably wait," Twilight said. "It's getting kinda late."

"Yeah, and I want to have a some time to actually, you know, talk to my girlfriend before we go off on some mission to bust an evil pony princess." Chuck looked at his watch. "It's only, what? For in the morning."

"We probably should leave them alone for a bit," Fluttershy offered.

"And we need to introduce Rarity to everybody in the dorm," Twilight said. "Besides, I want to hear about she's been doing since she got here."

"Fine, put saving the world on the back burner so we can catch up..." Rainbow Dash muttered to herself.

"It's dark enough that we should be able to get back to the dorm without any trouble," Twilight said. "We'll meet you tomorrow outside the dorm, okay?"

A few minutes of detail ironing later, the ponies began to slink off towards the dormitory.

* * *

><p>By the time the ponies had made their way back to home base, the Mahora clock tower's short hand was just passing the four. The polite desire to not wake up their hosts combined with the fact that adrenaline no longer tempered their fatigue caused all four ponies fall asleep mere moments after returning to Negi's room. Asuna was naturally quite confused to wake up to find even more ponies scattered about the room. Fortunately enough, Konoka was too busy fawning over and introducing herself to their new guest that she didn't mind having to make extra pancakes. Negi was also confused, but it took him mere minutes to get over it and join the conversation, listening intently to Rarity's account of how she had ended up in Mahora. The first half wasn't particularly interesting, as whatever it was that had happened happened, she had been curled up in bed, completely unaware that anything odd was going on. The second part was marginally more interesting.<p>

"...so I found myself upside down in some sort of topiary; I believe it was one shaped like some sort of bird. My mane and tail were all tangled up in the beak part of it, and I couldn't get free. I had only been in there for a few minutes when a girl appeared. She seemed quite afraid of me for a bit, but after I talked to her for a few minutes she was willing to help me out of the bush. She said she was going home for the weekend, and that I could stay at her house until we figured out what's going on. Speaking of which, I should probably let her know where I disappeared to."

"What was her name?" Konoka asked. "Maybe we could help you find her."

"Oh yes, of course. Her name was Ayaka; I didn't get her-"

"Ayaka!-?" Asuna was utterly taken aback. The world was too big for stupid stuff like this to happen. "You have got to be kidding me. She's in our class."

"Oh so, you can help Rarity get back in touch with her?" Twilight, ever practical, didn't really notice Asuna's surprise; if she did, she ignored it.

"Yeah, yeah... Let me get my phone. I can't believe all you ponies have been cramped up in the dorm while she probably has an entire damn wing of the house all to herself."

"That house we found you at really was quite nice," Fluttershy said. "It almost reminded me of the palaces at Canterlot."

"Yes, Ayaka really does have a quite exquisite house. When I told her that I was a fashion designer she went to the trouble of setting an entire workroom for me. I must admit it's been difficult adapting to designing human clothes, but once I figured it out, it's actually quite fun to do something different. Besides, it gave me something to focus on outside of my unfortunate plight. Of course, now that I know all of you are here, I don't have to worry about that quite as much." Her smile flagged for a moment. "I don't suppose you know where Pinkie Pie and Applejack are?"

"Unfortunately, we don't," Twilight answered sadly. "Although if they are here, we may be able to find them using the locator spell we used to find you. I'll have to tweak the parameters a little to pick up Earth Pony magic, but-"

"Hey, Rarity!" Asuna interrupted, quite obviously not paying attention to the conversation. "Ayaka's gonna be on the phone in a moment..." She put the speaker on and the rings became audible. There was a beep and Ayaka's voice spoke up, quite shaky and ornery.

"What is it, Asuna? I have some very important business to attend to. This had better be important!"

"Let me guess, you lost something important?"

"You could say that," Ayaka barked.

"Well, I found it." Asuna held the phone out towards Rarity. "Here you go."

"Ayaka, are you there?" the white unicorn asked.

"Rarity! What happened? Fonsworth called me last night and said that you had been carried off somewhere!"

"It's quite a long story. Needless to say that I'm quite alright. I apologize for causing you to worry. So much happened that trying to get in touch with you last night simply didn't cross my mind."

"Well, I'm just glad that you're alright. I was afraid that some government agency had taken you away for some reason. Where are you now?"

"I'm in the dorm, with your friend."

"You're in Asuna's room?"

"It appears so, I guess."

"Just a moment." The phone beeped and went silent.

"If we ever get back to Equestria, I really need to figure out how to make one of the those," Twilight said, examining the phone. "It seems much more convenient than sending-"

The door burst open, and Ayaka charged in.

"Rarity, what on earth are you doing in Asuna's-" She froze. She just acclimated herself to the fact that a unicorn, singular, existed. The sudden introduction of another unicorn and two pegasi was a bit much for her sleep deprived brain to process. "What...what is going on?"

"I'm not sure either," Asuna said. "Maybe we could get Negi to explain things." She turned to her teacher, whom had been doing his best attempt to not be drawn into the chaos.

"Hey, it looks like that kidnapper and her friends are here!" Rainbow Dash called from her position hovering in front of the window. "Looks like they've got a van or something."

"Ah, yes. We have a brief errand to run," Rarity told Ayaka. "We will hopefully be back in a few hours. Perhaps while we are gone your classmates and teacher can explain the situation in more detail."

"Yes, we should probably get going," Twilight said as she levitated her saddlebags onto her back. "I'm sorry we don't have time for proper introductions. Maybe when we get back." She trotted past Ayaka into the hallway.

"It was nice to meet you," Fluttershy said as she fluttered past.

Ayaka just blinked a few times.

"You should probably sit down," Konoka said, guiding her towards the sofa. "You'll probably faint when you hear everything, and it'll hurt less if you're already sitting down."

* * *

><p>Out in the hallway, Fluttershy awkwardly tapped on Twilight's flank.<p>

"What is it, Fluttershy?"

"Um, I was just wondering if it would be okay if I stayed here." She rubbed her hooves together awkwardly. "I mean, I don't really have anything to do there, and it might be dangerous..."

"You're probably right..." Twilight answered. "Whoever this guy is did tell Sarah to kidnap Rarity after all. It might be a good idea for you to stay here. If we don't come back or contact you somehow in the next...let's say three hours, you can tell Negi and Asuna that we went to the science building, okay?"

"Oh, okay..." The prospect that such a thing might be necessary freaked her out a little.

"I doubt we'll have to do anything like that, but it's just a little extra precaution. Don't worry, okay?" She patted Fluttershy on the head. "You have stuff to do while we're gone?"

"Yeah...I have some things to do.."

"Well, I'll see you later, then." Twilight turned around and trotted after the others.

* * *

><p>Both Chao and Chisame had headaches. Chisame had a headache because she knew for a fact that computer science was the one area in which she possessed expertise that Chao did not, and, as a result, Chao's constant refusal to accept that fact frustrated her to no end. Chao had a headache because she, reluctantly, knew that as well, and, as a result, it aggravated her immensely that Chisame's considerable skill, even when assisted with her shiny new technopathic artifact, had resulted in absolutely nothing. Of course, her relative inexperience didn't change the fact that she had more resources in the form of numerous computers that were specifically built to interface magically. Chisame didn't officially know about them, but she had made an educated (and correct) guess that they existed, and had quite unceremoniously shown up at Chao's laboratory to request their use.<p>

"I'm telling you, it's utterly impossible with my current equipment," Chisame complained. "Even with my artifact, my computer just isn't designed to work with magical computers. I don't know much about them, but I know this guy is using one, and I need one myself if you expect me to find him."

"I'm quite sure that your artifact is more than sufficient in that regard," Chao retorted. "A magical computer is little more than a mundane computer with a magical adapter that allows it to interface with spell programs. You're artifact is perfectly capable of that."

"In terms of interface, yes. In terms of processing power, not so much. I have to run a lot of info mining programs to get any data on this mysterious stalker of yours, and regardless of how well my artifact function as an adapter, it still uses up a ton of processing power. If you're trying to tell me that a computer built specifically to utilize magic isn't more efficient than a mundane computer with an adapter on it, I gotta question why you'd bother with a magic computer in the first place."

"Okay, fine, if I get you some magical hardware, will you stop bothering me and get back to your search? Whoever this person is, they somehow know-" Chao caught herself. At the moment her priorities were clear. She needed Chisame out of the lab. Walker would likely be back any minute now, and she really didn't want Chisame seeing a mysterious person delivering a pony to the lab. "You know what? It doesn't matter. I'll give you some hardware. I'm sure that you can put them to good use."

"Good," Chisame said triumphantly. She hadn't expected Chao to crack so easily. Hopefully the stuff wouldn't be crap, and she'd be able to keep it after this whole debacle was finished. Chao vanished into one of the lab's many closets and began to rummage. A few minutes later she emerged with several boxes of various sizes."

"A Maho-net compatible laptop, and several spell-compatible components," she said, all but shoving the boxes into Chisame's arms. "I'm sure you can find some use for them." She was just about to shove Chisame in the direction of the door when a buzzer went off. Chao punched a button on one of the tables. "Who is it?"

"It's Walker. I have your unicorn," a speaker crackled.

Chao groaned. Hopefully she could come up with some sort of story to spin to keep Chisame from getting too suspicious. She pressed the button to open the door, and immediately that task became several orders of a magnitude more difficult. Walker was there, and she had the unicorn, an eggshell white specimen with an elaborately styled violet mane. All well and good. The issue was the other, more familiar unicorn, the pegasus, and the two other humans.

"What do you think that you're doing!-?" Chao gasped, all but shoving Chisame out of the way.

"You never said that I had to make the dropoff by myself," Sarah answered, smiling. "Rookie mistake." She put a hand on her delivery's head. "Here's the unicorn you ordered. Her name is Rarity. These are some of her friends."

"Oh, so you know these other ponies..." Chao said, her lips forced into a false grin. Twilight was already stomping towards her, and she could make quite a good guess as to what was about to happen.

"You're the one who hired Sarah to kidnap Rarity!-? Why would you do that? I thought you were trying to help us!"

"Relax, relax." Chao raised her hands in a gesture of supplication. "I assure you I had no intention of hurting her in any way." That much was true. "I was surveying the magical patterns in the area around the campus, and I noticed one that very closely resembled your own. I figured that I'd retrieve her." That was also true.

"So you were looking for her for us?" Twilight's eyebrows unfurrowed and her eyes widened. "Thank you! That's so sweet!"

Chao just smiled. Her actual intent had to been to devise some means to keep the unicorn at the lab while she monitored the magical interactions. Twilight didn't need to know that. This was hardly ideal, but that ship hadn't completely sailed yet. This was certainly an inconvenience, but compared to all the other roadblocks, this one was refreshingly simple.

"Well, I'm glad to see that you all found each other again; however, that happened," she said. She half-looked at Twilight. The blue pegasus that hovered impatiently behind the unicorns dominated most of her attention. Wings that small should not be capable of supporting that much weight unless they flapped a lot faster than they already were. Either the pegasus' body was made of balloons (unlikely, Chao thought), or else there was some other form of magic. Luckily enough, she had already activated the magical sensors in the laboratory in expectation of the unicorn's arrival. Hopefully they'd pick up whatever the heck it was that the pegasus was doing. "While you're here, would you mind if I made a request of you?"

"I suppose..." Twilight answered.

"Well, after you made your pactio with Chisame, I couldn't help but notice that you have quite a unique magical signature. It's quite unlike any naturally occurring magic around here." Chisame's face flushed, and raised the stack of boxes slightly in an attempt to hide it.

"Well, that's to be expected," Twilight said, starting to slip into lecture mode. "After all, we did come from an entire other world. The fact that my magic is compatible at all with your magic is quite surprising."

Morgan tapped Chuck's shoulder and leaned in.

"Do you have any idea what the heck they're talking about?"

Chuck just shook his head.

"I don't get it either." Both of them turned to see Rainbow Dash dangling in the air next to them, eyes slack with disinterest. "I used to try to understand it, but now I just sorta tune it out." For a few seconds, she was entirely motionless except for the flapping of her wings. "Yeah, this is boring. I thought we were going to do something cool."

"Actually, I may have a good opportunity for you," Chao said, addressing the blue pegasus. "I assume you like flying?"

"Do I like flying? HA!" Rainbow Dash all but vanished as she zipped back and forth across the lab, leaving prismatic contrails in her wake. "I'm the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria! The only pony to ever perform a Sonic Rainboom! Twice! I'm a living leg-" Greatest flyer or no, her aim was slightly off. She barreled straight into Chisame.

The girl came out of the multicolored spin to see her computer boxes hanging in the air. Two of them were surrounded by magical glows, caught by the unicorns. The largest, most important box was still falling.

"Catch it!" she shouted.

"Got it!" Chuck dove forward in an overly elaborate roll. With an unnecessary flourish, he snatched the box out of freefall just inches above the floor.

"Thanks," she mumbled as she stood herself back up. Rainbow Dash was flopped awkwardly against the wall. Both Chao and Chisame glared daggers at her.

"I would appreciate it if you wouldn't do that in here," Chao chided. "Lot's of expensive equipment. Although...I am rather curious about how you managed to propel yourself so quickly and leave that afterimage behind you. Would you mind coming back here some time so I can run some tests?"

"Tests, what kind of tests?" Rainbow Dash asked. The last time she could remember anyone running tests on her had involved Twilight and a lot of electrodes. It hadn't been fun. "Sounds boring."

"Hardly," Chao said. "I'm curious about your flying ability. All you have to do is fly really fast and let me record some information about it."

"You have someplace for me to fly?" Rainbow Dash perked up. "I haven't been able to really fly since I got here."

"Of course."

"Sure, I'll do that!" the blue pegasus answered.

"And while we're on the subject," Chao continued, "I would love to get a chance to analyze your unicorn magic more. Is there any chance that I could convince you two to come back some time so I could further study the magical interaction? After seeing how well it worked with that Pactio, I'd love to see you cast some spells in more detail."

"So what's this 'pactio' thing I keep hearing about, anyway?" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "Twilight wouldn't tell me what it is."

"Well, I need to get going!" Chisame blurted, her face flushing. She strode over to where Chuck was holding her box. "Can I have my computer back please?"

"Sure." As Chuck held the box out, the logo on the corner of the packaging caught his eye. His eyes rolled back for a moment and his whole body shivered. "Whoa..."

"Chuck, are you okay?" Sarah asked.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine." He shook his head. "I just flashed on that computer box. I know all the specifications of that computer."

"Okay, I guess it's a bit weird that you flashed on something so minor, but it's not really a big deal," Morgan said.

"No, it's not that." Chuck took a second look at the box to confirm his suspicions. "The Intersect is telling me that it's a magic computer that's based off of a popular mundane model. The thing is, the model that it's supposedly made from doesn't exist in our world."

"Huh?" Morgan cocked his head.

"It says that that computer model has sold millions of units in North America and is one of the most popular models among businesses. It doesn't exist in our world. I fix computers for a living and I've never even heard of it."

"So, what's the big deal?"

"Morgan, the big deal is that this information cannot be in the Intersect! It does not exist in our world. Something added information to the Intersect!"

"What's this Intersect thing?" Chisame interrupted. She could tell from the context that it was something vaguely computer-related, and it piqued her interest. "And what's so bad about people adding information to it?"

"The reason it's bad is because it's _in my head!_" Chuck pointed at his head, as if he were afraid that his words wouldn't be understood. "And you can't just modify the Intersect without specialized computer training and all sorts of advanced technology. It took my father years of research to even get it to work at all! And nobody has every been able to modify it while it's in somebody's brain. Ever! It shouldn't even be possible."

"Wait." Twilight scratched her head. "So he has one of those computer things in his head? How on earth does that work?"

"I'm not sure..." Chisame answered. "I've never heard somebody getting a computer in their head before."

"Well, it's really more of a database," Morgan interjected. "I mean, it's not like his brain runs on Linux or anything."

"That's beside the point!" Chuck interrupted. "I want to know who on earth managed to modify the Intersect while it was still in my head!"

Chisame was about to answer when a loud beep echoed through the lab. Chao groaned. She knew exactly what it meant. She punched one of the many buttons on her console, and a massive screen popped out of the wall, showing a computer screen, with a large chat window visible.

**jackassTranscendance messaged temporalJellyfish on May 29 at 10:22 AM.**

JT: That would be me.

Chao angrily slammed her fist down on another button and a keyboard popped out of the console.

TJ: What the hell are you doing?

JT: I'm answering his question.

TJ: I know that.

TJ: I want to know why you are hacking your way past my block to do so.

TJ: You do realized that I have blocked you, right?

JT: It's simply because he doesn't have an account.

JT: ;)

Chisame shoved Chao out of the way and took over the keyboard.

TJ: You bastard!

TJ: Do you know how much sleep I've lost trying to find you! :(

TJ: You must be cheating somehow.

JT: Relax, relax.

JT: At least you're getting paid for it.

TJ: How do you know that?

JT: I know a lot of things.

TJ: That doesn't answer my question.

TJ: At all.

JT: Believe me, if I answered you wouldn't believe me anyway.

TJ: awefpoijwepoijfapowj ojwaeofj

Chao grabbed Chisame and dragged her away from the keyboard. Chuck stepped forward.

"Uh, do you mind if I..." He gestured at the keyboard.

"Go right ahead," Chao answered.

"Thanks." He began to type.

TJ: Chuck here.

TJ: So what exactly did you change when you modified the Intersect.

TJ: I'd kinda like to know.

TJ: Given that it's my brain and everything.

JT: Don't worry, your brain will be fine.

JT: All I did was update the data in the intersect so that it would be more useful.

JT: As you've inevitably figured out by now, this universe isn't quite like your home universe.

JT: So I modified the intersect a bit so that the information is accurate to this world.

JT: That's all.

TJ: When exactly did you do this?

JT: While you were in transit.

Chuck stared at the screen, not quite sure of how to respond.

JT: In any case, if you really want to understand the Intersect better, you should probably take up Chisame's offer.

JT: I know she hasn't technically made it yet, but she will.

JT: She'd have to be an idiot not to.

JT: She's very much interested the idea, and she's just acquired the perfect means to further explore it.

JT: No way is she passing up that opportunity.

"Okay, that's enough." Chao shoved Chuck away and re-assumed control of the console.

TJ: So what do you want, anyway? I assume you have a reason for interrupting.

JT: Two things.

JT: First, unless you and Chisame want to be my messenger girls, I suggest you set up accounts for your friends.

JT: At the very least, you guys ought to be able to connect to each other more easily. It's very convenient.

TJ: Duly noted.

TJ: And the other thing?

JT: Aim for the head.

TJ: What?

JT: You'll understand when the time comes.

JT: Talk to you guys later.

JT: Bye.

TJ: Hey, wait a minute!

**jackassTranscendance is offline at 10:33 AM.**

Everyone stared blankly at the screen for a solid minute. It was Rainbow Dash who broke the silence.

"What the hay was that about?"

* * *

><p>Fluttershy was quite happy with how everything had turned out. Her friends almost certainly believed that she had stayed behind because she didn't do well in large groups, and because she was scared of being the same room as whoever it was who had hired Sarah to kidnap Rarity. And for the most part, they were totally right. The only incorrectness here was that it wasn't her sole motivation.<p>

As soon as her friends had piled into the van and been whisked off to wherever they were going, she had made a beeline for Homura's room. Ever since the mysterious girl had taken her up on her invitation to watch a movie with them, she had held it in the back of her mind to talk to her again. After all, Fluttershy had her other friends around; Homura didn't seem to have anybody. After sticking together for those hours after their arrival, Fluttershy couldn't help but think that she was the closest thing to a friend Homura had at the moment.

Sure enough, when she poked her head into the room, Homura was sitting by herself, watching some sort of TV show that involved unnaturally excited people spinning a large wheel with lots of flashing lights on it.

"Um, excuse me."

Homura turned around, her face betraying no indication of annoyance or happiness. Fluttershy was tempted to back out of the room, but she forced herself to continue.

"I was just wondering if you would mind if I came in. I just thought that you might be a bit lonely."

"I don't mind."

"O-okay." Fluttershy hovered slowly across the room and took a seat on the couch. "So, uh, what are you watching?"

"It's called a game show. People go on it to play a game and the winners get money and prizes."

"Oh, that sounds interesting."

"It can be, I suppose. I'm really only watching it because there isn't anything else on. It's sort of odd to watch though."

"Odd, why?" Fluttershy asked. It wasn't much, but in the short amount of time she had spent with Homura, this was the first time the girl had volunteered any information about herself.

"Well, my world is similar to this one, but it's quite different..."

Homura went on to explain that a large portion of the show was made up of trivia questions, and that the world that she came from was different enough that she couldn't answer many of them. Nothing drove home the fact that she was in another universe like the realization that all the details were different. It wasn't a world that was almost entirely the same except for one or two things; the noticeable differences trickled down and changed everything else.

The two of them spent the next hour or so flipping through the channels, Homura making reserved attempts to explain to Fluttershy exactly what was going on. Both of them were lost, to various degrees, but the knowledge that they were in the same boat made the confusion more palatable. The conversation was almost bordering on fun when Makie returned from her gymnastics practice.

"Hey, Homura. What have you been up- A PONY!" Makie vaulted over the couch and latched onto Fluttershy, cuddling the started pegasus aggressively. Fluttershy couldn't really respond outside of a few startled squeaks.

"Makie, you're scaring her." Homura tapped Makie on the shoulder a few times.

"Oh, sorry." Makie loosened her grip. "It's just that ever since we found you I had wanted to talk with the ponies but I never really got a chance."

She traded introductions with Fluttershy, expressing several more times just how adorable the pony was. Homura watched on, finding the scene vaguely familiar. It reminded her of someone that she had known meeting a cat for the first time. The memory felt melancholy, but at the same time she couldn't help but smile a little.

"So have you two just been watching TV all day?"

Homura nodded.

"That's so boring!" Makie sniffed. "You need to do something more active than that! Sure, you're all svelte now, but if you keep sitting around like that you won't be that way for long!"

Homura nearly jumped off the couch as Makie playfully poked her in the stomach.

"What do you want to do, then?" Fluttershy asked. This Makie person was a bit too energetic, but she seemed nice enough. She certainly reminded Fluttershy of one of her as-of-yet-unfound friends.

"Good question," Makie answered. She began to stroke her chin as she attempted to look pensive. "I know! Let's play Twister!"

Ten minutes later, Fluttershy found herself stretched awkwardly across the Twister mat. If not for the fact that one of Homura's legs was underneath her, she would have fallen over quite a while back. Makie was completely entangled around the two of them; Fluttershy wasn't entirely sure how Makie could bend that way and still have a spine. She was puzzled even more by the fact that Homura had accepted the idea so readily. Sure, she didn't know the girl that well, but she just didn't seem like the type who would have been drawn into a party game so easily. When Makie had explained how the game worked, Fluttershy had expected Homura to reject it; she wasn't really what one would call touchy-feely. Yet instead of recoiling, she blushed a little and said, "Sure, if that's what you want to do." Weird.

"Left foot, blue."

Fluttershy felt Homura start to move. A moment later, her support was gone. A moment after that, she was collapsing, dragging the two girls down with her into a tangle of limbs. The three of them lay still for a moment, unsure of how to proceed in extract themselves from the pile. Then a scramble began, ending with Makie lying on the mat and Homura and Fluttershy standing red-faced next to it.

"So does this mean I won?" Makie said. "Both of you two fell over before I did."

"I...suppose so," Homura mumbled.

"You're a lot more flexible than I thought." Makie stood up. "I mean, when you got that right hand yellow spin and you had to like do that pretzel thing around my leg...I didn't think you'd be able to do it. I mean, you're just as flexible as I am." She kicked one of her legs up, and with a grunt shoved her foot behind her head, balancing precariously on one leg. "Have you ever done any gymnastics before?"

"No," Homura answered, gawking at Makie's elasticity.

"You should give it a try. I bet you'd be good at it."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you have good balance and everything. Can you do a split?"

"Huh?"

"A split!"

"Um...I don't know, I've never tried."

Fluttershy wasn't entirely sure how to react as she watched Makie grabbed one of Homura's legs and began to lift it. Her other hand was on Homura's back, supporting her. The pony knew that it probably wasn't anything untoward, but the intensity with which Homura was blushing each time Makie readjusted her grip made her question whether she should be watching.

"Okay, so maybe you aren't quite as flexible as I am," Makie said, oblivious to just how red Homura's face was. "But still, if you trained a bit, you probably could be."

"I-I'll think about it," Homura stammered.

"Hey, Fluttershy!" Twilight's head poked into the room. "Konoka said you were in here. Turns out that Rarity wasn't going to get kidnapped. She and Rainbow Dash are still at the lab doing some experiments on magic and flight. They'll be back tonight." She paused and noted Makie and Homura's odd position. "What are you guys doing anyway?"

"We're playing Twister!" Makie exclaimed, releasing Homura. "Do you want to play?"

"Sure, why not!"

* * *

><p>A short time later, Makie emerged from the bathroom.<p>

"Are you sure you're okay?" Twilight asked, a mix of concern and apology in her voice.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Makie said. "It's just a bit sore." She put a thick pillow on her chair and sat gingerly on it, being careful to lean a bit so the majority of her weight was on the left side of her bottom. "Thanks for helping me bandage it up, Homura."

"T-think nothing of it..." Homura mumbled.

"I'm so sorry," Twilight said. "I should have been more comfortable."

"No, don't worry about it." Makie waved the concern away with her hand. "I'm the one who sat on your head, after all."

* * *

><p>"Are you sure this is the right way, Rainbow Dash." Rarity looked up from the map of the Mahora tunnel system that Chao had given her. "I'm quite sure that we were supposed to turn left back there."<p>

"Nah, we're good. I know exactly where we're going."

"Yes, but do you know where we are?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I think." Rainbow Dash scratched her head.

"I don't think so," Rarity said. "According to the map, there should be an exit right there." She pointed a hoof at a nonexistent opening at the apex of the cavern.

"Well, crud." Rainbow Dash zipped up to where the exit was supposed to be. "Just sit tight for a minute, I'm going to backtrack a little and see if I can find where we took a wrong turn."

"You're going to leave me here?"

"Of course not. I'll be back in like two minutes, tops. You know I'd never leave you hanging."

"Fine, just hurry up."

"Will do." Rainbow Dash buzzed down the tunnel and disappeared around a corner.

Rarity turned her attention back to the map, largely to distract herself from the macabre of surroundings. The tunnel system was indeed convenient; Rarity could already tell that it would be invaluable to get herself and her friends around campus without having to sneak everywhere. But still, the dank darkness reminded her a bit too much of her various encounters with subterranean monstrosities. Who knew what creatures might be hiding in the darkness? Not to mention that the whole place stank as if she were walking through a sewer. How disgusting. Although the thought might not be an exaggeration, given the channel of water flowing down the center of this particular passage.

Speaking of which, her eye was naturally drawn to a faint glimmer in the dirty water. She took a step forward, to the edge of the channel. It almost certainly wasn't a gemstone, she could tell. But the object had piqued her curiosity, and she might as well examine the object. She extended her telekinesis into the water and grasped the object. A coin. A rather large gold coin with red detailing and a square hole in the middle. It certainly wasn't her usual kind of gaudiness, but it had a certain flair that she could see herself building an outfit around; give her designs some variety. She withdrew a handkerchief and wiped the coin off, tucking both the coin and the piece of cloth in her mane.

"Hey, I found the exit!" Rainbow Dash popped out of one of the connecting tunnels. "Told you I'd be back. Follow me." She disappeared again.

"Will you slow down?" Rarity called as she trotted after her friend. She rounded the corner and saw a shaft of pale light pouring from a circular hole in the top of the tunnel. A metal ladder was built into the wall under it. "You realize I can't climb that, right?"

"I'll carry you out, don't worry about it," Rainbow said. "I'm just gonna look over here real quick, I think I heard something."

"Fine, fine," Rarity grumbled. "Make it quick. I want to get out of this place." She rolled her eyes. Rainbow Dash was most likely just trying to scare her. Her suspicions were confirmed as Rainbow Dash barreled into view, screaming.

"HOLYCRAPHOLYCRAPHOLYCRAP Rarity we gotta get out of here!"

"Please, Rainbow Dash, this is no time for-" She froze as she saw something behind the pegasus in the shadows at the end of the passage. Something with tentacles.

"Jump up and I'll carry us out of here!" Rainbow Dash called.

Rarity braced herself as Rainbow Dash came closer. She had to time this correctly. She took a deep breath and leaped towards the pegasus with all the strength her legs could muster. As she left the ground, she realized that she had jumped far higher than she had thought she was capable of. She wasn't jumping; she was flying. She shot upward, slammed into Rainbow Dash and kept going. The two ponies crashed into the ceiling with a crunch. Rarity landed unexpectedly lightly on the floor, Rainbow Dash splayed out on top of her.

"Rrrrrgggggh..." Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth and let out a long low squeal of pain. Rarity looked back and saw that the her friend's wing was bent rather awkwardly. They weren't flying out of there. She looked back down the tunnel. The thing was coming closer; tentacles, teeth, red eyes... Rarity swallowed and looked up at her only chance of escape. If she could somehow jump high enough to hit the ceiling...

"Hold on, Rainbow Dash." She felt Rainbow Dash's forelegs grip her body. Rarity took a few steps back, hoping that her jumping skill was as precise as her telekinesis. "Here goes. A hop..." She started forward. "A skip..." She braced herself. "And a jump!" She flung herself towards the hole. Cool, clean night air blasted her face as she shot through it. She flipped over a few times in the air, miraculously landing on her hooves. She spun around to look at the manhole she had just emerged from, and shoved the cover back into place. Feeling a bit safer, she held still long enough for Rainbow Dash to crawl off. "What was that thing?"

"I have no idea."

* * *

><p>Fluttershy fidgeted nervously with the curtains in the Library Girls' room, trying to shove them out of the way long enough to get a good view of the outside.<p>

"Do you think Rainbow Dash and Rarity are alright?" Fluttershy asked. "Weren't they supposed to be back a while ago."

"I'm sure they're alright," Twilight answered. "They can take care of themselves. Chances are the tests just took longer than they thought."

"Yeah, I bet Rainbow Dash could beat up anything that messed with her," Haruna said with a laugh.

"Um, excuse me..." Fluttershy began to say.

"I wouldn't go quite that far," Yue said. "I'm sure she's competent in her area of expertise, but isn't claiming that she's capable of handling anything a bit much?"

"It's just an exaggeration, Yue," Haruna grumbled. "Right, Nodoka?"

"Yes, I don't think Haruna meant for her statement to be taken literally."

"Excuse me!" Fluttershy spoke loudly this time, which was still quite soft, but at least this time they heard her.

"Yes, what is it?" Twilight said.

"Um, I can see Rainbow Dash and Rarity out there, but there's something else. I'm not sure what they are."

"Let me see." Haruna shoved Fluttershy away from the window. "Oh boy."

"What is it?" Nodoka asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Well, given that there are talking ponies running around, I suppose I can't be too skeptical," Yue answered.

"Okay, then. Just remember that I'm not making this up or exaggerating or anything."

"Fine, what's out there."

"Zombies."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>I guess I'm a bit evil for cutting off the story there, especially since I'm leaving on vacation soon and won't be back for about 3 weeks, so I probably won't be posting much of anything during that time. I may or may not be writing during that time, but my internet access will be...spotty.<p>

Anyway, I'm glad that I finally got around to having the Chuck crew interact with the other characters, which I've been meaning to do for a while. I have plans for them.

Thanks for reading; reviews are welcome.


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